Zompocalypse: The Quest to a 100 Days
by Trayscent
Summary: A Rogue hacker threatens the Oasis just as our main characters are settling in. Parzival must rely on new friends and old faces to combat a new adversary much deadlier than any he has faced before. BOOK-VERSE with slight AU, Friendship Centric, ParzivalxArt3mis. Tons of OC with self-inserts for your own! Written by a guy who loves games and sees RPO for what it COULD be.
1. Author's Notes

Advanced Summary: It's been a year since Wade won the contest, and is starting to acclimate to his position as the CEO of GSS. Wade has worked hard to keep his company heading in the right direction, despite numerous obstacles that hound him at every turn. As time passes after the contest is over, the popularity of the 80s begins to wane and he struggles to cope with all his responsibilities when he just wants to have fun. His friends keep in touch with him but remain as busy or unavailable as he is and he begins to question if the contest was worth the result. However, a top hacker working in GSS finds a way to tamper with the Oasis source code, issuing a challenge to Wade that threatens the Oasis and all of its users. Arthur Magellan becomes apparent to be a zealous, but intelligent psychopath, willing to dip into worse waters than Nolan Sorrento and IOI had to keep his project alive. Wade and his previous High-Five comrades must use every trick in the book, as well as with the help of new friends to stop the new villain that has emerged.

* * *

The fanfic will follow the book-verse but will blend elements of the movie-verse into it. Of course, because a year has passed, things will also be different.

* * *

 _ **It should be painfully obvious I own nothing but some of the characters that I made up. This fiction is created purely with the intent for entertainment and should not be used for any purpose other than!**_

* * *

 **A/N: For those who just want to get onto the story, skip this entire chapter as it is an explanation of why I constructed the story as I have.**

This fanfic will be gently AU, with a more scrutinized outlook on the world of Oasis. It will also be blended with themes, notions, or plot devices from the movie, as well as the book. For those who have not read the book, or have not seen the movie, here is the universe of Ready Player One as I've built:

1\. Sho, is known as "Shoto" in the book, and is a Samurai avatar like his brother Daito. Keeping with the book, his brother remains deceased as a result of Nolan Sorrento and he retains this Japanese persona and not the Chinese ninja seen in the movie.

2\. Aech, is a "heavy-set" woman in the book, and I'll keep that theme. Her avatar in the book is also an "Athletic, Caucasian male" which I will keep in tune with that. Wade addresses Aech as a male in the Oasis, and a female IRL so I'll roll with that. Additionally, in the book she had a "basement" modeled after Ogden's basement that Halliday and all his friends hung out in to play DnD, while in the movie she had a "garage." For the purposes of this fanfic, we'll assume she has both.

3\. Art3mis is known as the "Sixer Fixer" in the movie, a popular twitch streamer and possibly a youtuber, but an eccentric and famous blogger who dons two blaster pistols from Star Wars, and a high level sword on her back. I like her personality and look in the movie, but I'll keep her arsenal from the book. In the movie, her father was indentured to IOI and had passed away while enslaved in their never-ending program, while in the book her parents were left unscathed by IOI. I like the way the movie got her involved, and it helps with her "helping the world" mantra, so I'll elaborate on that.

4\. Parzival is given "GM" like powers as a result of becoming the CEO of GSS and winning the contest in the book. He is also given Anorak's robes, and the final battle as well as the third gate, the big red button, everything is in Castle Anorak on planet Cthonia instead of planet Doom. I will follow the book in this instance.

5\. Additionally, all the keys were not the same in the book from the movie (minus one that was very similar), and there were no gates either. The events in the book will proceed over the movie, however all tests that were done in the movie will instead be referenced as tasks they had suspected would lead them to the copper key but did not.

6\. From what I remember about the book, when you died, you lost everything in your inventory (dropped), your level was reset to 1, and you respawned at the last place you logged in. In the movie, you "zeroed out" and you lost "everything you had ever earned" as well as dropping it all to the ground. Clearly, there are a lot of discrepancies here (correct me if I'm wrong), so here is how I will be ruling it in my fanfic: Death resets your character completely, with you respawning where you first logged in, and all of your items are dropped where you died. Like most games, if the items are not looted, you could go back to pick them up. However, any items NOT on your persons, still belong to you and are still "safe," wherever they are.

7\. In the book, Parzival had a base on an asteroid where there were "strict" permissions allowing who could enter his base, much like private chat rooms. To prevent people from simply stowing all of their valuable loot on a private base and then going out "risk free" there is a rather expensive fee instead placed to keep this "base protection" on your zone, and if it is not paid (I'm thinking you have to pay daily) the protection falls and your base is free to be attacked, pillaged, and destroyed.

8\. I've been trying to wrap my head around how things are "created" in Oasis. Both the book and the movie say essentially "anything can be created" but there was a hint from the movie where Aech noted Art3mis' Akira bike is a "standard model with a licensed skin" which makes sense enough to me. Therefore, there will be millions, if not billions of different "models" of weapons, vehicles, parts, and things of that nature with different "skins" that alter hitboxes, add functionality, mass, and what have you. You can also create custom models via mods, which I'll explain later.

9\. IOI in the book never really was addressed to their fate, other than Nolan Sorrento seemingly being arrested (his trial had not happened), while in the movie the company suffered the same exact fate, minus the fact that Wade had purposefully made their Indentured program illegal and shut it all down. I'll be following the movie's lead here.

10\. The book is written from what I remember in a first-person style. I'm more comfortable with third person, so this will be written as such.

11\. In the book, Wade shared his "winnings" with his friends an even 25-25-25-25 (between Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto) but in the movie, he won the egg himself. I like the idea of him being the "sole" winner of the competition in the movie and I'll go that route. Wade's relationships with his friends however is duly noted, and he will appoint them all head of different divisions, giving them heft salaries.

12\. In the movie, Wade decided to "turn off the Oasis on Tuesdays and Thursdays." I feel like there are better routes to get people to focus on reality, without taking away their favorite escape tool and will address this later.

13\. All for now, this might be updated as the fiction goes on. Let me know if this is confusing, or if you would have preferred I had not done it this way.

* * *

I will post updates on my profile on progress with the story. Keep tabs on my profile for progress updates!

* * *

As a fun little add-on: I saw someone put in an idea to enter in your own character into the Fanfic they had constructed and thought: "what an interesting idea!" So I too would like to follow suit in a different fashion. Email: " **Trayscent at Outlook dot com, or pm me. I ALSO HAVE A FORUM on the RPO section. IF I Don't respond to your character inquiry within a few weeks it means I didn't get it!** " ( forum/Zompocalypse-Forum/218384/ ) and answer these prompts for a character outline. If you do not answer these well (Like not following the rules for my character personality traits) I will still add your character, but they will have a diminished role, or I will affix them with attributes as I see fit. Additionally, please don't put it in reviews. Pming me (however that works) is fine with me.

Name:

Age:

Gender:

Languages this character speaks (May be fictional languages like Klingon, Elvish, etc):

Description of what your character looks like:

Character Personality Traits:

(Pick 3 Positive Personality Traits, and 1 Negative One. For instance you character could be: Disciplined, Genuine, Patient, and Boring.)

What Motivates your character:

What was your character's past like (Be as elaborate as you wish):

Character Avatar Name:

Character Avatar Species:

Character Avatar Physical Description:

Character Abilities/Skills: (Note, to keep the balance of characters, the less you put the better they'll be at it. I won't accept things like "perfect at combat, stealth, and sabotage" and will curve the character if that's done. If you say vague things like "combat" I'll allocate specialties into melee, range, magic, etc. Remember, the less you say, the better your character will be, but try to be specific.)

Additional Notes of your character (Anything I missed or you would like me to know):

Here's an example character submission:

Name: Theo Baxter

Age: 18

Gender: Male

Languages this character speaks: English, Broken Spanish

Description of what your character looks like: Frail man with short curly black hair. Thick eyebrows, with a short nose, and usually chapped lips. Has sharp emerald green eyes, and a small chin. Typically wears a "NERF THIS" t-shirt, with a worn gray sweater over it, and black and white striped jeans.

Character Personality Traits: Loyal, Knowledgeable, Friendly, but has poor hygiene.

What motivates your character: Theo is motivated to play video games on the Oasis every day and hang out with his friends. Typically that's all he wants to do.

What was your character's past like: Theo grew up in the stacks of a small town south of Miami off the coast in North Key Largo. His mother and father work full time inside the Oasis, working with UPS to deliver items across the Oasis for a cheaper price than the instantaneous mail service Oasis uses. Theo spends most of his time on Oasis, playing on the Minecraft world, honing his creativity and his knowledge of the many modded Minecraft zones on the planet. He belongs to a dedicated Minecraft clan named the "Pixel Pirates" and his best friend Erin is in it. She's an 18 year old shut-in like himself, who loves Minecraft and Anime.

Character Avatar Name: Theus Alvaraz

Character Avatar Species: Human

Character Avatar Physical Description: A Pixelated Ezio from Assassin's Creed to keep in theme with the Minecraft world he frequents. His avatar has an upgraded Diamond Sword, Bow, and several spells.

Character Skills/Abilities: Minecraft Combat, Minecraft Mods, Knowledge of complex Minecraft mods/workings.

Additional Notes of your character (Keep this brief as well): Theo loves flirting with girls on Oasis, but has a hard time talking with anyone in the real world.

* * *

And with that, let's start the party.


	2. Chapter 1: Zero Hour

Chapter One: Zero Hour

Wade felt himself snap back into attention when he heard his name called. Suddenly, a balding man in his fifties wearing a brown suit came into view. He had a concerned look on his face and his lips were curled into a half-frown as he stared straight into Wade's eyes.

"Shall we do this another time?" His steely voice asked. Wade appreciated his attempt at trying to sound nice and not annoyed that he clearly was not interested in the conversation. Wade nodded, and the man made a swift gesture to a bunch of hologram documents that were floating in the air which then all whisked back into a small projector that was built into the desk they sat at. He could barely remember what they were discussing about, his thoughts primarily consisted of heading into the Oasis with Sam and slaying dragons.

"Please Percy, if we could. At your earliest convenience." Percy stood up almost immediately from the response, and smiled at Wade. He was the head of the law division for GSS, and was a reputable man who did not dwindle.

"You're the CEO of GSS, I make myself available at _your_ earliest convenience. Remember?" He snorted, a friendly smile growing on his stout features. Wade was reminded of why Ogden Morrow had mentioned this lawyer was like a pitbull. Wade let out a soft chuckle.

"Still getting used to this stuff, sorry." He apologized automatically, running his hands over his face as if trying to scrub off the sleep deprivation he felt.

"You don't have to apologize. In fact, you shouldn't. How about I send you a shout tomorrow and we can pick up afterwards?" Percy extended a hand, and the smile that had still not left his face became even warmer. A strange sight since Wade had witnessed first hand just how aggressive, and tactfully savage Percy could be in a courtroom.

Wade took it and mentally flinched at how strong Percy's grip was. "Thank you," he said as Percy turned and briskly left Wade's office.

When the door closed he immediately reclined back in his chair, a floorboard opened slightly to allow the chair to sink into the floor and give him room to stretch as far back as he wished. The chair was a Terraform-2500. It was mounted onto a sphere that was under the floor, and could transform into an omni-directional harness that attached to an Oasis haptic suit. In fact, he appreciated the fact that the whole room, despite there being desks, chairs, a small kitchen, file cabinets, couches, TVs, and gaming equipment scattered everywhere, could be transformed into the best Oasis gaming hub money had to offer.

Suddenly, a soft electrical discharge sound filled his ears. He recognized it immediately as the sound effect for the BFG 9000 in the original Doom games. That was his designated communication tone for Aech. He flicked a finger towards him from his desk, and a user interface shot up from the projector that showed a myriad of information. The interface was split into two sections. One section had news bulletins and videos, stock exchange numbers, political bills that were being voted on, financial statements of various companies, GSS server load statistics, and other real world information. The other section was Oasis related information, from a map of the whole Oasis, Oasis news, community forums and pages, videos of random planet hotspots, current suspected hackers and bots, possible criminal activities within the Oasis, and an arsenal of buttons and tabs that allowed Wade to view, access, or do virtually anything to the Oasis. He easily found himself looking at the Oasis section more than the other.

"Open Aech's commlink." Wade spoke, making sure he enunciated clearly and a window enlarged to cover a good chunk of the Oasis section. A separate camera captured tiny chip implants that were embedded on Wade's clothes and the outline of his body. It projected him as his avatar to Aech, showing Parzival sitting at a desk in a private room in Castle Anorak on Cthonia. He smiled at the sight of his best friend. Aech was lying on his back, in a tight space in what Wade could only guess was some sort of vehicle he was working on. Aech's immaculate, young, Caucasian face was in a close up, some sludge on his cheek.

"Z!" Aech exclaimed first before Parzival could say anything.

"Whatsup Aech?" He replied softly, his tone tired but ecstatic.

"Just checking up on my favorite ex-gunter." He happily chimed, then cocked his head sideways and raised an eyebrow. "You look like shit Z, and I would know, I had an intense bathroom sesh after some burritos from Pablos."

Parzival broke out into a fit of laughter. Aech always knew what to say to make the mood lighter. "You're eating at Pablos, when you have enough money to buy Pablos?" He asked. "I may look like shit, but you're eating it."

"What can I say? I've got a weakness for cheap Mexican food. So?" Aech responded before a bright electrical light suddenly exploded from somewhere off the camera, showering Aech with sparks. "Damnit!" He cussed, moving along what appeared to be the underside of some vehicle. "The parameters of this model didn't say there would be an electronic current there, what the balls?" Parzival watched as Aech opened up an interface off screen and scrolled through it.

"Oh duh!" Aech smacked his forehead. "I forgot that when they updated from 1.7 to 1.74 they implemented a few current pipes to offset the weak circulation to the frontal turrets due to cost effective wiring!" Aech chuckled to himself, rolling his eyes and pretending to be an idiot which caused Parzival to raise an eyebrow. Aech smirked and gave him a sideways look. "Can you guess what I'm working on with just that much info?"

Parzival sighed and leaned back in his chair again, putting his hands behind his head as he kicked his feet up on the desk. Though there were literally billions of items in Oasis, only a very small number were exactly in the 1.7 iterations, and only one blueprint had information about any sort of electrical logistic patchwork. He fired back a confident look at his best friend.

"I'm guessing a Star Wars Republic LAAT Gunship?" Parzival asked, heavily confident in his answer. Aech grinned back at him. "Your noted interest with the Clones is your downfall." He added slyly.

"You got me!" Aech exclaimed, eyebrows squinting as he appeared to focus on something. "I'm just adding an interesting mod to the two personnel turrets attached to the side of the ship."

"You know Aech, you could just buy a new ship, equipped with whatever you want. You've got the dough."

"Yeah, but you know that's not my style. I like building things with my own hands, feels more personal, teaches me new things, ups my stats, and lets me add customizable things." He noted with a mischievous tone. "I might even get lucky with a legendary stat!"

"Customizable things like those huge saws on your Bigfoot monster truck?" Parzival asked, a teasing tone evident. He was referring to Aech's truck that he used whenever he rarely went deathmatch racing. The last memory Wade had was of Aech retelling stories about racing courses similar to the one Halliday had created that they initially thought were a part of his hunt.

"Exactly my man!" Aech replied. "You get me!"

"You're the head of the creative department here, but you know if the stats on whatever you're doing don't check out I gotta balance it out right?" Parzival said, his tone first proud and friendly but then noticeably dipping in enthusiasm.

"I know, Z don't worry. I've been crafting custom mods on vehicles for years. Years man! I know how it works. There's a credit to size, mass, power, abilities, and function ratio and if it exceeds certain predetermined thresholds it's flagged for review by the balance department. That of course, is in respect to level, rarity, and artifact bonuses. Which prevents rich bung-holes from just having the most powerful equipment available but still allows OP gear on the market. Old news!"

"Sorry, just a bit out of it. I should've known you knew what you were doing." Aech stopped working and gave Parzival a worried look.

"You do look really out of it Z, what's going on?" Parzival instantly felt a bit bad for how worried Aech sounded in his voice. He sighed, his eyes glazing over as he recounted his last couple of days.

"So much corporate stuff I have to deal with. Now I know why Halliday went into isolation and let the company run itself. I'm on the brink of doing it too!" Parzival said, suddenly feeling his frustration leak out of his mouth. The words just came out one after another and he was grateful Aech calmly took it all in.

"IOI is still on my nerves, they're doing everything they can to exploit the terms and conditions of using the Oasis, battling any decision we make with an army of lawyers. Probably because they're salty about us shutting down their internment camps. Other companies are taking suit and using predatory sales practices and manipulative campaigns to rake in the dough while we're fighting IOI. There is a slew of deep web hackers and activity happening within the Oasis that our hackers and administrators can barely keep up with, not to mention the amount of criminal activity that happens in Oasis and on illegal private servers that promote dangerous sex practices and drug trade." Parzival found himself suddenly out of breath, everything he said coming out a mile a minute. Aech just nodded in sympathy.

"But you know what's really bugging me Aech? Ever since I won the competition interest in the '80s and the pop-culture of then is fading. Now that everyone isn't just hooked on everything Halliday was into, there are so many new tv shows, games, stories, gadgets, music and I'm stuck here living in the past. What little time I have to _catch-up_ I feel is pointless." He remained leaning back in his chair, his eyes welling up and a little watery but he fought his hardest to keep them from building up anymore.

Aech fell silent, thinking about what he said. He slid out from under the gunship, and walked over to a workbench, leaning over it still looking directly at Parzival.

"Listen Z, the times are changing, new fads and public interest is gonna shift no matter what we do. There are so many trends that even though I have an infinite amount of free time more than you I still can't keep up! But that doesn't mean we're alone. There are millions of ex-gunters who still enjoy things like: Back to the Future, Robocop, The Jeffersons, Legos, Garfield, Centipede, Double Dragon, Gundam, Astroboy, and all the big 80s things! Hell, Art3mis, Shoto and I still do!"

He took a moment, before continuing.

"Just because we're getting older, or our interests are outdated, doesn't mean we're wrong to like them. Halliday and Og enjoyed Dungeons and Dragons during a time where everyone loved sports and partying. Just because people don't like the same things you like, doesn't devalue the quality of what you love."

Parzival took a moment to let that sink in, and smiled at his friend. "Thanks Aech, you always know what to say." Aech nodded at him, his lips stretching back into his infamous cheshire grin.

"You just now figured that out?" Aech said, wearing his confidence so naturally like it was always there. A second later, an exclamation mark popped into view on the side bar of Parzival's display and an alarm sound pinged throughout the office.

"Shit, gotta go Aech. Talk to you later." Aech straightened himself up, the camera following his face. He understood this happened often in their chats that the company required his attention.

"Let me know if you ne-" He was cut off when his chat window immediately shut off and a new window came out from the exclamation mark, replacing Aech. His avatar feed dissipated as he automatically logged off, and a live video call replaced it. A display of a young, petite woman who had her long blonde hair back in a ponytail appeared before Wade. She had a girl next door appearance. She was wearing a black space invaders t-shirt, blue jeans, and was sitting at a glass desk with the back wall behind her fully decorated with 80s themed pictures, pins, collectible action figures, and insignia. A sleek metallic name-tag was pinned to her shirt, with bright small letters showing "Andrea Porter, chief of hacker division."

"Good afternoon mister Watts, I'm sorry to interrupt you in the middle of your meeting but I'm afraid I have some pressing matters." She spoke professionally, her voice soft and a bit nervous.

"Hi Andrea, again, call me Wade or Parzival. Whatsup?" She blinked nervously, gulping as her cheeks tinged a little pink.

"I'm sorry mist-uh, Parzival," she hastily corrected herself mid-sentence opting for gamer tag which he was infamous for. "I need you to come down to the server floor as soon as you can, we have a huge problem."

Wade mentally groaned in his head. It was one thing after another. He just wanted to log into the Oasis and unwind with some fragging or something.

"What kind of problem?" He asked, unable and unwilling to hide the annoyance in his voice. Andrea's lip quivered slightly as her eyes looked away for a moment, and never really came back to meet his gaze though it landed somewhere on his face.

"Uhm, you see sir. We suspect Arthur Magellan created an unauthorized sector, planet, and has tampered with the Oasis source code." She spoke, looking on edge as she finished what she stated. Wade felt a pang of fear well up in his stomach. Arthur Magellan was one of three head programmers who actively worked for GSS, apart of a select few who had direct access to the Oasis code, and lead the team that was responsible for content, bug fixes, and balance. He also was one of the smartest people he knew, possibly even better at coding than Halliday. His thoughts began racing back and forth. Did he just go rogue?

Wade shifted uncomfortably in his seat, hunching forward towards the display. "Where is he now?"

Andrea's eyes darted around her empty desk, and gently tugged at her lip. In a way, Wade thought she looked kind of cute when she was really nervous. A strange thought to be entering his mind when this whole situation seemed dire, and he buried it quickly.

"I'm not sure. Time clock has him punching in sometime around nine AM, security feeds however don't show him exiting the floor. But when I checked in his office, he wasn't there. I'm guessing he also tampered with the security."

Wade narrowed his eyes, but sighed and nodded his head, "I'll be there." He spoke firmly and closed the window, making a wave with his hand and the display center turned off. His heart began pounding in his chest, incredibly worried about where this will lead. He stood up out of his chair and made his way out of his office, the only room on the top floor of the GSS headquarters and briskly paced to the elevator. From his office to the elevator was a long marbled room that was littered with arcade games, snack and drink machines, a bathroom, and plenty of top of the line Oasis bays in the middle of the room. At the end of the hallway, two armed guards wearing iconic terminator sunglasses, black leather jacket and pants stood at guard with assault rifles. As he approached them, they both stood up straighter nodding to Wade.

"Nice night for a walk, eh?" One of them said, his voice grizzled. Wade knew these two guards very well, and responded promptly the next line of dialogue from _The_ _Terminator_.

"Nice night for a walk." He replied. Their faces were chiseled, frames stout and muscular conveying brute men who did not mess around. But in this particular moment, both of them gave him a huge smile. Wade was comforted that his beefy guards seemed friendly and human enough, even if only for a second. The ding of the console alerted him that the elevator reached his floor, and he entered, turning around as the doors closed to face them.

"Server Floor, B13." He said aloud, and the words 'Server Floor B13' appeared on a display above the door.

"C-C-Clearance required for that floor bucko!" a glitchy albeit cheery business sounding voice emanated from the elevator. Wade smiled, he had installed the system agent software as the program running most non-confidential tasks in the GSS building. It was modeled after Max Headroom, and was the voice he had grown accustomed to over the years when he was hunting for Halliday's egg. He had used Max to maintain his morning routine and private base operations on Oasis for so long, he couldn't get rid of him.

"Shove it Max." Wade quipped quickly. There was a flash of light as the elevator scanned the holding room just to make sure it was Wade, in that millisecond tiny sensor cameras embedded in the corners captured his skin and voice pattern, posture, hair color, fingerprint, retina scan, and even his odor.

"Meanie." The voice replied suddenly ridiculously high pitched, and the elevator began to descend to floor B13.

The elevators walls were made of glass, and in an odd way, Wade felt like the building was swallowing him as if he was in a food capsule sinking through the bowels of the GSS HQ building. Floors whizzed passed him of various types. GSS was not your average building, though there were floors dedicated to standard departments including legal, marketing, customer service, human resources, accounting, and research. Every other floor was dedicated to quality of life. On one floor was an entire swim park, another was dedicated to real sports courts like tennis and basketball (though Wade preferred the Oasis versions), a myriad of cafeterias and restaurants, amusement park rides (Wade admitted it seemed superfluous since you could ride much better contraptions in the Oasis but you couldn't simulate the real force of gravity without using a lot of space), and even parks!

As the elevator began to pass the ground floor and the glass windows of the elevator filled with dirt, Wade felt the chill of cooler temperature seep into the compartment. Reinforced steel doors whizzed passed his view before the elevator slowed down, eventually to a crawl as he reached floor B13.

"We've arrived at your d-d-destination!" Max cheerfully stuttered. A series of mechanical gears began loudly churning as the unlocking sequence of the complicated network of locks and pistons initiated. Wade waited patiently for the door to open, only doing so for those who were allowed to open it. "Server Floor B13!" Max exclaimed as Wade exited onto the floor.

His initial intent was to investigate Arthur's office and he had a bad feeling about what he was going to find there. When the doors opened, he was greeted with towering banks of state of the art servers, sleek and shining matte black. Interlaced on the outer shell were glowing blue and red lit tiny coils that blew cold air into the servers in dust-clearing directions, and red coils were exhaust vacuums. Together they kept the servers relatively cool, in addition to the cool temperature controlled room. There were dozens upon dozens of rows of them in this singular room, and they helped run the majority of GSS functions, and limited Oasis networks. Halliday had made sure that Oasis was a peer-to-peer styled service, where the load of the servers were shared with the rigs of each player who was logged on, borrowing their networking and processing power to ensure the Oasis never failed. He was happy for that, and he was also happy that despite the amount of fans working it was no louder than a bunch of bees humming.

Two guards armed with automatic rifles stood posted at the elevator door, flanking Wade as he stepped out onto the floor. Both nodded in unison to greet the CEO of GSS curtly. Cameras above eyed him on a heavily protected in-circuit feed, along with armed robotic drones that flew above patrolling the room for any unauthorized personnel.

Standing in front of him, digital clipboard in hand was Andrea and two other similarly dressed black space invader t-shirted middle aged men. Wade had not enforced a dress code onto his hackers/programmers, but he offered a credit incentive if they uniformly dressed like Halliday. It was small touches like these here and there that he did to pay homage to the man who gave him everything.

"Mister-" Andrea started, before Wade loudly interjected with a cough, walking past her and towards Arthur's office. She followed him, the other two men following behind her as she struggled to keep up with Wade. A security drone detached from the wall above them and automatically escorted them. The purr of its motors buzzing overhead was noticeably louder than the room itself, but it kept Wade at ease despite the growing feeling of despair in his stomach.

"Sorry. Parzival. Our programmers have been trying to figure out how he implemented his code outside of the normal security protocols. The code he entered into the Oasis has been intertwined into vital Oasis source code, he's used methods I've never even seen before."

"I've double-checked the other two head-programmers and they still have their security keys so he was able to tamper with the code outside of the standard implementation process." Said one of the middle aged men, who reminded Parzival of a battle toad with his extremely slanted eyebrows, popping eyes, and long mouth.

Whenever patch updates would roll-out into the Oasis, after they of course were heavily scrutinized by the many departments of GSS, they had to be implemented to the source code in a very particular manner. The manner, which included a series of complicated steps involving a separate secure room with it's own defense matrix, had the only computer that could tamper with the source code. That computer, could only be unlocked if all 3 keys were inserted into a console before the computer would come out of it's lock box. Wade had made it this way, to honor Halliday's hunt. All 3 keys were replicas of the keys in the hunt, with Arthur owning the Crystal Key. Being the brilliant hacker he was, Wade's surprise that he was able to access the mainframe outside of this procedure was not unimaginable.

"Evidence that backdoor methods were used?" Wade asked as they made their way through the network of servers. He was suspicious that GSS somehow had contracted hackers who sold backdoor programs out on the black market like IOI did. Though the maze of server banks was huge, he could still orient himself to the right direction because of the color coding of the ceiling. On the North, East, and West sides of the floor were hallways that led to the offices of the programmers, hackers, game developers, and other important staff. Arthur was in the Northern wing.

"None sir, we've triple checked with third-party code protection software, along with personal checks with Evelyn and Dexter. They're in his office right now trying to break into some encrypted files he has on his hard drive. They just started a couple minutes ago, but there's been no progress so far." The other middle-aged hacker said, a balding man with thick glasses and a bulging stomach. Wade felt that bad feeling begin to stir again in his stomach if his other two head programmers Evelyn and Dexter had checked and found no visible vulnerabilities within the security systems.

"You said he created a new sector and planet? Show me." Wade mentioned and Andrea tapped something on her clipboard and a bright light shined out of her clipboard in front of them as they walked.

The display had a miniature view of the entire Oasis universe, in a 3x3x3 grid reminiscent of a Rubik's cube. The way Halliday intended it to be. Wade scanned the area, his attention moving over to a pocket of space that appeared on the southern edge of sector 23 just before Andrea highlighted it. Wade felt good that his senses were still sharp despite his lack of playtime in the Oasis.

"Zoom in." He said, and she double tapped her clipboard. The display shot forward, light-hours of space was crossed in milliseconds to reveal a giant planet, large clouds that seemed like dust storms loomed over its brown exterior. In the distance, there was a hovering orbital space station near the planet. Andrea had already selected both of the objects for analysis, but the toolbox that connected from them read "Invalid Action." Arthur most likely put in a way to prevent them for tampering or inspecting his section of the Oasis using administrative tools. Wade swallowed hard, his worries piling up in his head.

They crossed the threshold into the Northern wing and turned the last corner to see at the end of the hallway was Arthur's office. Several programmers stood outside it's door, giving wide berth to the three rather bulky guards who stood to block the entrance. One programmer turned her head and saw them all heading towards them and squeaked, alerting the others. They scattered, escaping into adjacent hallways.

"Keep it on standby." Wade ordered and Andrea stowed the display as they reached the guards. Two immediately parted sideways in either direction, the middle one smiling at Wade before extending a hand. He shook it.

"Good to see you Anton." Wade said, eyeing the 300-pound 6'3 Roman man. Though he stood shoulder to shoulder to the other guards, the Roman had this presence that made him at least twice more intimidating then either of them. His eyes were as sharp as his jawline, he had short cropped military cut brown hair, and donned a tight fitting business attire in contrast to the terminator clothes Wade asked the other guards to wear. Wade felt safer knowing he was on his side.

"Wade." He greeted, his voice as heavy as an anchor and carried with it the feeling of a man who fought a thousand wars. The kind of voice that is comforting but scary at the same time.

"Have you found Arthur?" Wade asked and Anton frowned, shaking his head.

"Not yet sir. We've done several perimeter sweeps, both with men and drones." He eyed the security drone flying above them. "Speaking of which-" He drew a handgun and shot the drone in such a swift motion Wade barely caught it. His skin crawled from the loud gunshot, and he flinched from Andrea screaming in surprise and jumping, along with the gasps of the other two programmers behind her.

Anton had single handedly shot the battery bank of the drone with perfect precision, sparks exploded out of it as it spun out of control. It circled horizontally before diving right at Wade. His instincts began to fire into motion, beckoning him to react but his vision was cut out by a large mass. Anton stepped in front of him, catching the drone in as swift of a motion as he had drawn his weapon. He dropped it to the ground, a loud scratching of mechanical screeching as it's many parts hit the solid cement floor. Afterwards, he turned back at the young CEO.

"Sorry about that, are you alright sir?"

"WHAT is your problem!?" Andrea exploded from behind Wade. She stormed up to Anton and poked him in the chest, her sudden ferocity surprising seemingly everyone but the two other programmers and Anton. "You just blew up company property, and you could've at least warned us before you fired a gun right above our heads!" She poked him again with her dainty finger, but he didn't seem all that fazed. He narrowed his eyes a little, staring right at her.

"A hacker just broke through one of the most sophisticated security systems I've ever seen, and I've worked for homeland security and the military. You think I'm going to trust anything electronic at this moment that has a weapon on it? Especially if it runs on code?" Anton's voice remained stoic, but it didn't deter the intimidating impact his voice carried. Andrea shrunk, her fiery persona dimming slightly.

"Why didn't you just turn them off, _Chief of Security_?" A slight bit of venom dripped from her words when she stated his title. Anton still didn't seem all that bothered, but raised his arm to show her his wrist. Wrapped around it, was an ornate silver smart watch, that repeatedly flashed the word: "ERROR."

"I would have, but as you can see I cannot. I, among any other personnel with clearance are effectively locked out of the system."

"What?" Andrea raised her arm, pulling back her sleeve to reveal a similar watch that was creamy white. It did not have the same screen flashing on it's face.

"I just accessed the security feed earlier to look for Arthur and-"

"Basic operational inputs are functional to make the system appear to be working as intended, but as soon as anyone tried to look deeper into the problem, like seeing who had accessed the security mainframe in the last 24 hours, a full system wide shut off initiated." Anton interjected. Andrea tapped on the display of her watch, a few seconds later the same screen that was on Anton's was mirrored on her own. She hissed in frustration, muttering something under her breath.

"What's on his computer?" Wade asked, putting himself into the conversation and steering it away from the semi-hostile tension between the two.

Anton switched gears, stepping backward and allowing Wade to come into Arthur's office. Wade walked forward, the other three following but two hands from the other two security personnel swiftly stopped them from entering.

"It's okay, let them come in." Wade said, and the guards side stepped out of the way to allow the other three programmers to follow.

Arthur's office wasn't different from the standard programmer suites that were given to GSS computer science inclined employees. An ornate steel desk was in the corner with a leather chair, that faced a wall that had 6 built in monitors stacked in a 2x3 pattern. Adjacent to the desk along the same wall was a counter that had a small kitchen. There was a sink, a fridge, cupboards, a microwave, and oven, and an electric stove. Opposite of the room was an Oasis Bay very similar to the one Wade has in his room. The only difference was that the walls were plastered with holograms, posters, and action figures of zombie themed paraphernalia.

There were two people standing next to Arthur's desk inputting commands in a frenzied paste. One was a red haired woman whose curly hair bloomed in all directions. She was standing at the end of the desk with a laptop that had several cords connecting to Arthur's computer, a bunch of windows open on her screen were filled with text running rapidly across them. She reminded Wade of Ms. Frizzle from the old cartoon 'The Magic School Bus.'

The other individual who was utilizing Arthur's computer had all 6 monitors displaying a dizzying amount of programs all running at the same time. It appeared like several programs were running in tandem with each other, processes were cycling as windows appeared and disappeared at fast speeds that Wade couldn't interpret. The man had unkempt brown hair, thin glasses that rested barely on his nose, and a beard that extended beyond his neck. Both programmers were rather thin looking, evident by the same black space invaders and blue jean attire they wore. They were the other two head programmers who respectively held their own keys, each had their key strapped around their neck.

"Hey Evelyn and Dexter." Wade greeted. They both turned their heads swiftly at him, Evelyn smiling and rushing over while Dexter waved a hand and nodded in greeting.

"Good to see you sir!" Evelyn cheered in a high pitched voice. She certainly had an 80s hippie accent that entertained Wade. He found her optimism always pleasant, and was reminded that Andrea had told him that she immediately liked Wade better than Halliday since Halliday had fired her for not remembering some obscure 80s pop culture reference. Ogden had rehired her of course but she never really get over it, his friendly attitude towards her seemed to keep her in a good mood with him.

"Good to see you too Evelyn. So tell me what's on his computer." Wade said, quickly getting to business. The group moved over to his computer, standing adjacent to Dexter. Dexter typically kept to himself, the times he did come by his office or have calls with him he remembered his office was decorated with a lot of metal band fanfare. He was a nice guy who just happened to love metal.

As soon as Wade stepped within a few feet of his computer, a tiny camera shot out of Arthur's desk, immediately scanning Wade and the others. It was custom protocol to unlock the functionality of the computer, but it was strange that it done that despite being already logged into by administrators.

"Parzival identified." An electronic voice spoke from hidden speakers in the room. Anton and the other two guards acted instinctively, with Anton making a move to grab Wade.

"Hold on Anton." Wade interjected, and the lights in the room began to dim. Nothing else had begun to move, so he wagered Arthur did not have any physical intent to harm him. At least, as of right now.

"That's new." Dexter commented, his voice deep, but hoarse like he hadn't drank any water for the last two days.

"What's going on?" Andrea asked. Evelyn shrugged, her curiosity and intuition driving her to look everywhere around the room for any moving parts. Anton and the other two guards didn't pull Wade out of the room, but they stood near him with their hands on their pistols just in case.

After a moment a light flashed in the middle of the room, an image of Arthur's avatar shot out of a projector embedded in the ceiling. It showed the face of a man with short blonde hair slicked back by gel. He wore sunglasses, had a bony nose, and a square jaw. His avatar wore a black trench coat that had a folded collar, along with a tight shirt, belt, pants and shoes that were all jet black. Wade instantly knew what his avatar was. Albert Wesker from the Resident Evil series.

"Good afternoon Parzival and guests. I assume that by now you've noticed the little project that I have been working on in the Oasis has finally come into fruition." He gave a dark smile, and despite not being able to see his eyes Wade had a distinct feeling the avatar was staring right at him.

"Don't bother trying to tamper with what I've done, as if you try too hard you'll find that things might break more than they're fixed." Wade felt the flush of heat and the nauseous feeling fill him to the brim. He began to sweat and he had to remind himself to breathe. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself down. It was happening again. Wade was very familiar with being targeting after he had won Halliday's competition. Most were empty threats, and the few that tried were easily subdued by his security. He had a terrible feeling that Arthur however would not be as easy to deal with.

"You see, I was inspired by Halliday's little Easter egg hunt. And I was incredibly impressed with your performance Parzival." The avatar tilted his head down so his eyes could be seen, they had a sinister look to them. Wade gulped silently as his eyes met Wesker's. It was a mixture of maniacal admiration and twisted morality that reminded him of an obsessed fan that often crossed the line.

"I was so inspired, that I had to make a competition of my own just for you!" Wesker's voice was noticeably louder as he rose his arms towards the sky, a large grin plastered on his face as he looked towards the ceiling with intensely zealous eyes and his mouth agape like he had received divination. He reminded Wade of a religious nutbag, which was strange because Arthur had not given any signs of this type of personality. Arthur was quiet and typically kept to himself, and whenever did have to speak he was courteous and polite.

"But I needed to make it worth the time and effort of the most notorious gunter, who defeated IOI's vast resource and numbers. But how, how would I do such a thing? A man who has everything! A man who has money, who has power, who controls the world!" His arms suddenly dropped, and he took off his shades to give Wade a devilish smile.

"You threaten to take that away." He held up his hand, and a circle began to materialize above it. Wade felt the blood leaving his face as he began to recognize what the circle was.

"Know what this is?" Wesker asked, a rhetoric tone to his voice.

"How…" Wade begin to ask, as he eyed a big red button that appeared above his hand. That was the button Halliday had shown him behind the book of a bookcase inside castle Anorak, the place only he had access to. The button that, if pressed would destroy the Oasis.

"What is that?" Andrea and Dexter asked simultaneously.

"How did you get that?" Wade asked, ignoring the both of them.

Wesker shrugged, waving his hand so the button dissipated in the air. He paced back and forth as he begun to explain, his expression neutral but somehow still creepy.

"I've been digging around in the Oasis source code covertly for some time, laying my plans a little here and there, before I had found it. It took me a long time to trace and piece the code all together. Halliday was such a genius, the way he made it was nothing short of pure amazing brilliance. I don't have direct access to the one you have Parzival, but since I saw the code… I reverse engineered it and created my own."

Wade gulped. Arthur had found the code for the worm Halliday constructed and created his own. He could destroy the Oasis at any given whim, at any given time. He struggled to keep his feet upright, and was glad everyone had their eyes on Arthur's avatar.

"Now that I have your attention, we come to my little competition." Wesker took a step sideways, and the image of the new sector he had created appeared before them.

"Sector 28, on the southern edge of sector 23, a few thousand kilometers from planet Zullidan." An image of the large brown planet and the orbiting space station zoomed in much like from Andrea's clipboard. Before Wade could ask, Wesker continued.

"So what do you have to do for my little competition? Simple. If at least one person can survive a hundred Oasis days on my planet, I'll push this button." Wesker held out a hand, and a large blue button materialized above it, slowly circling. As it circled, the other side revealed an embossed two large white letters "GG."

"Once I press this button, you'll find sector 28 disappear, along with my version of Halliday's worm." Wesker said, smiling. "In addition, I'll also destroy Halliday's worm as well, as I've figured out a better way to do what he asked, and replace it with a more encrypted and discrete version just as a way of rewarding you."

"How do we know you'll actually do that?" Anton asked immediately after Wesker finished speaking. He eyed the Roman brute and snorted with a smirk.

"You don't. But you'll just have to trust me. I like to think I'm a generous man." Wesker began to laugh maniacally, and the room felt uneasy. No one moved a muscle.

"That's all we have to do?" Wade asked, breaking out from the protective circle of his guards to address Wesker directly. "We just have to get one person to survive a hundred days on your planet?"

"But of course it won't be easy as you can imagine, but yes that is all you have to do" He nodded promptly. His avatar eyed Dexter and Evelyn and the display of sector 28 vanished. An image displaying the personal information of everyone in the room popped up. The programmers all gasped, while Wade distinctively heard Anton growl for a second.

"If you try to circumvent what I have done not only will I destroy the Oasis. But I'll destroy anyone who tries, and believe me when I say I have the resources, the means, and the will to do so." He threatened. Then, a news report appeared on the display. A news reporter from the local news channel was reporting on an accident that involved someone falling onto the tracks of a subway train system. They had not survived.

"No!" Evelyn cried out, as she burst out into tears. The news reporter identified the body of one Katie Card, a french programmer who worked for GSS. She was a close friend of Evelyn, and Wade remembered seeing them actively eat together during lunches and spending time together in the Oasis.

"You monster. Once I get my hands on you, you're dead!" Andrea screamed, standing right up to Wesker's avatar. A part of his projection was bleeding onto her clothes, but her furious feelings denied her the ability to care.

"She discovered my plans and threatened to reveal my project today after spending days trying to get me to stop. Sweet girl, but despite my warnings she had sent an email to you Parzival, which I had to capture before it was properly sent." Wesker folded his arms. "You know how serious I am now."

Wade was frozen in place, his brain flooding with emotions and anxiety. This was an all too familiar feeling, resurfacing and reminding him of when he dealt with IOI during the hunt. The way they had threatened him, his friends, and killed his family and innocent bystanders. But he had grown a thicker hide, and as the new CEO of GSS he would not allow for anyone else to get hurt. Not again. He was going to do what was needed to be done.

"I'll do it Arthur. But on one condition."

"You're in no place to negotiate, but I'm listening." Wesker replied, arms still folded but a nearly unnoticeable excitement about his behavior.

"I'll make sure that no one tries to interrupt what you've set up, as long as you promise me that if someone does try... you talk to me first before you do anything. Okay? I can't account for the actions of people of who I have no control over," he tried to sound stern but he couldn't help that he felt like he was pleading.

Wesker's hand came up to his chin as he pondered what Wade asked for a moment. Then his eyes shifted slowly to Wade, a devilish glint remained in them.

"You make sure no one interrupts what I've set up or you'll find that they pay severe consequences. You can do that by letting them know that if they try, they're dead." Wesker responded, his tone serious. He turned to Evelyn and Dexter. "Don't worry, you two trying to hack into my computer to access the files I have on there is irrelevant, there's nothing noteworthy left on there so you two are safe, unless you do anything else from here on out that annoys me."

The display of the news feed disappeared, and there was a zoomed in visual of Wesker's face. He watched them all intently, before resting his gaze on Wade.

"I'll allow you to research me, just as much as you've researched Halliday in hopes of figuring out what it is I truly want." He spoke. "Doesn't this sound fun and exciting!" He exclaimed suddenly, his hand gesturing out to his planet like he was a god who had given a gift to mortals. The noticeable lack of response didn't seem to phase him, if at anything it satisfied him.

"Good luck, Parzival. I'll be watching, listening, and waiting." Then, Arthur's avatar disappeared. Silence filled the room following his departure, as eyes slowly traveled to Wade. His mind was wrapped in thoughts.

"Sir?" Anton asked, facing him. "Your orders?"

Wade nodded his head a few times, as if steeling his resolve on a plan he had not yet made public. He raised up his arm, revealing an armband similar to Anton's. It didn't have a flashing "ERROR" message on it, as he had not tried to access any security functionality. Raising the armband near his mouth he took a sigh before speaking as clearly as he could.

"Call Art3mis, Shoto, and Aech." He made his way towards the door. "Andrea, get marketing and human resources to call the top five ranks of every official competition mode available in Oasis and round them up, don't tell them anything other than that I asked for a meeting of the greatest minds. Anton, I need one of your staff to get me everything on Arthur, through legal means and not. I want to know his whole history, and everything he's ever done, or accomplished." He eyed the rest of them. "The rest of you, follow me. We're headed to the Oasis bays on my floor."

Wade cracked his knuckles, Andrea and Anton immediately getting to work, while the rest of the room huddled up behind him as he lead the out of the office.

"We're going to assemble the greatest video gaming minds out there and finish this before it get's out of control."

* * *

Thanks for reading! Be sure to let me know how you feel about the story so far. I kind of wrote this in a super hurry because I finished the book recently on Audible and my mind has been racing with ideas!


	3. Chapter 2: Operation is a Go

A/N: Thanks for waiting for my second chapter! Progress and planning for the third chapter is already in progress. Be sure to tell me what you think!

* * *

Samantha Cook wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, then folded them as she leaned back to admire her handiwork. She was drenched in sweat, the night did no favors by baking her in its intense summer humidity. The worn leather operators chair of the construction crane vehicle she was working in had soaked a good portion, and felt cool if not a little gross.

Her eyes wandered up and down the frame of her latest efforts. A tall, minimalist concrete building with various jagged angles stood in front of her. It was spotlighted by crossing beams of heavy duty commercial lights. She smiled at the bright orange letters that read "GSS Ecological and Humanitarian Services."

The sound of a few construction vehicles were still humming about, the beeping of one in reverse echoed through the construction zone, which was fenced off for the safety of others as it was on the outlier of an urban city in France. She was among the few who were still on the worksite, the shift had ended hours ago before the sun had set.

Samantha had taken it upon herself to be directly involved in the construction of the seventh humanitarian building GSS had built this year. She hated being behind a desk, the thought of crunching numbers and delegating was completely not her forte. She preferred to be hands on with her efforts. As she sat there, her thoughts drifted to Halliday's hunt, and about how she heavily relied on herself to be the first to find the first and second egg. She didn't want to be involved, she _needed_ to be involved.

As she began to reminisce, she thought of how she had come to lead the charge of GSS's world helping division. When Wade won the contest, he took a look at GSS's charitable efforts and found that while it existed, it was only for public perception. They gave money to charities here and there to stay in a good image, but did not have a dedicated department. So he made one, and appointed her as the director, since he knew how she would have spent her wealth if she had won the contest.

Once appointed, she had immediately gone to work on trying to make the world a better place, with her current efforts placing her in the middle of France, about 50 miles or so from Paris in the city of Sens. The city had been the victim of degrading electricity, water, and air quality so she poured all her time into improving the quality of life here. This effort unearthed many other issues and problems that plagued France, and their neighbors so she decided to build an operational center here.

An alert on her armband flashed propelling her from her thoughts. The sound of an electronic guitar striking a chord from Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' song alerted her that Wade was trying to contact her. Looking down, his image was sporting a dorky winking face that warmed her heart.

"Connect." She spoke, and the projector in her armband dazzled to life on demand, shooting an image of Wade's face out a few feet from her suspended in mid-air. She felt a pang in her chest as her heart sunk a bit, recognizing the worried look he had on his face as he was walking briskly.

"Hey babe, whatsup?" She casually greeted him, her lips naturally curling into a smile. She would let him reveal his problems and not poke about it unless he wanted to.

"Hey Sam." He replied, the audio muting as he turned away from her and addressed something or someone. He turned back and the audio resumed. There was a split second where she heard a females voice, before the background cancellation software in his armband faded it to nothing.

"Something bad happened at GSS. Do you know where Akihide and Helen are?" He started, she noticed a line of sweat formed above his brow and his eyes kept darting back and forth. He was engaged with several things off the screen, of which Sam guessed to be people around him. She picked up on him calling out Shoto and Aech by their real names, which he only referred to them as such when things were serious.

"What kind of bad? Also no I haven't heard from either of them." She asked, sitting upright in her sweat drenched chair.

"Oasis and GSS in trouble kind of bad." He told her, turning away again and with an annoyed face saying something quick before turning his attention to her. His face began to zoom out, and his whole body slowly came into view. He was probably in his office and transferred the communication link to his office.

"Sorry, lots of planning right now. But I'm alone now. How are you?" He asked, his voice growing softer and warmer, a worrisome grin plastered on his face as he stared into her eyes with comfortable ease.

"I'm fine, but what's this about the Oasis and GSS in trouble? IOI up to something again?" She responded. She would push the romantics aside for now to try to keep him focused on the task at hand. He still often sidetracked whenever he spoke with her, often barely keeping a professional tone in lieu of being a funny loveable doofus.

"No, but just as bad. One of my head programmers, went Hal on me and hacked into the Oasis and created a new sector and planet. He issued a challenge to us, threatening that if we can't complete it he's going to destroy the Oasis. He's also killed another programmer, Katie to show that he means business."

Sam gulped, processing the information. She didn't necessarily involve herself with anything technology related within GSS unless her work required the assistance, but even then she remembered the young and cheerful Katie.

Adjacent to her screen showing her boyfriend, another video appeared that he sent to her. It was a recording of the news broadcast about Katie's death, ruled later as an apparent suicide. This was reminding her too much of a similar incident she had experienced, a chill crept up her spine as the memories began to resurface.

"It's just like Daito." She breathed, unable to wane the fear in her voice.

When they were hunting for Halliday's egg, IOI had bombed where Wade had lived in hopes of killing him after tracking down where he lived. They intended to also kill Daito, after acquiring the location of where he was right in the middle of a battle during the trial of the second key on planet Frobozz where they had to complete a recreation of the Zork Quest to attain the Jade key. Unfortunately, they were successful in their attempt. They had barged into his apartment, and threw him off his balcony. Shoto had never forgiven Nolan and IOI for that.

"Yeah, Arthur could be worse though. He was able to circumvent all the security measures we had to tamper with the Oasis source code. Dexter and Evelyn have no idea on how to begin to unweave the intricate defense he's set up, and they're afraid to try because he already knows all our personal information. With that kind of brilliance-"

"He could blackmail and extort anybody." Sam interjected, finishing his thought. Wade nodded, throwing his hands in the air.

"He could find some video of a cop cheating on his wife, a powerful senators dirty secret, some other billionaire's dirty fetish! If they've got internet access, he probably could break into it and fish out whatever secrets they got!" He yelled in frustration, finally finding his way to his chair and stuffing his face in his hands and then pounding the table with a clenched fist.

"IOI was able to figure out where we all lived with their limited intelligence, who knows what Arthur is capable of?"

"Are you going to call the police? Possibly even get in touch with your contacts with the FBI or CIA? Maybe some third party military organization? They probably have brilliant hackers too." Sam asked. Wade had certainly entertained the option, especially since he worked closely with the FBI and NSA since there was a lot of crimes perpetrated on Oasis. He was sure they dealt with situations like this.

Before he could respond there was a small power shortage that passed through his office. Sam's image froze for a bit and the lights flickered. That never, ever happened. In fact, that _couldn't_ happen. A grim realization slowly dawned upon Wade.

"What was that?" Sam asked, noticing the freeze and momentary darkness. He thought for a moment, wondering if there was a momentary lapse in the power grid. But, GSS had their own power generated sources so that didn't make sense. The timing of everything was too coincidental, it had to have been on purpose.

"Arthur. He's probably listening to us right now." Wade whispered, barely audible as his eyes darted to the cameras that were in the room. There were far too many.

"Seriously!?" Sam shouted. "Fuck you Arthur!" She cursed without warning, feeling a welling heat rise up in her chest as her temper flared.

"Babe." Wade said sharply, trying to calm her down and remind her of how sensitive the situation was.

Sam growled, before muting the call and spewing a string of insults. Wade couldn't help but smile at his girlfriend's furious antics. He relished in the way her brows furrowed, and the energy she exhibited in her fit of rage. She was passionate about a lot of things, and that was one of the things he truly loved about her.

"If he could extort anyone, it's safe to say he could probably do it with the government too. I'm sure that was his way of letting us know he could." Wade said pulling his attention back into business, trying to get her attention. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, suddenly feeling how sweaty he was and how flushed his skin was. When had it gotten so hot? Maybe all of the events and the fear began to toll on his body.

"You know he could be bluffing." Sam whispered, unmuting herself and speaking with a hushed tone. She had a fierce look in her eyes, as if looking to him to validate her hypothesis.

"He already killed Katie, I don't think I could take that chance with anyone else." His voice became sullen, the memories of his past bubbling to the front of his mind. He had lost so many people in his life already, and he was tired of all the unnecessary deaths that had been caused because he was in someone's cross-hairs. This had to end. Now.

"What does he want?" She asked, realizing now she had not done so already.

"He created a new sector and planet, south of sector 23. The megalomaniac was inspired by Halliday to create some competition. With the prize as 'saving the Oasis.' He didn't specify how long we had."

Sam raised an eyebrow, a confused expression on her face.

"What kind of competition? Like a contest? What do you have to do?" Wade heard her ask it in an annoyed voice, but he swore he sensed a sense of curiosity and excitement.

"All he's told us is that we one player has to survive on the planet he's created for a hundred days?"

Sam stroked her chin, leaning back into the chair as she thought deeply about what Wade asked.

"Survive? What does that mean? Like a gauntlet or something? But then what does he mean by a hundred days? Continuously logged on? A hundred days as the leader of something?" She berated him with questions. She opened her mouth to continue but Wade took that moment to cut her off.

"I don't know, Sam. I just found out. We're creating a party to go investigate the planet, that's why I tried to get everyone together." Her eyes lit up, she jolted out of her seat forward, her face magnifying so fast the software took a moment to recalibrate her back to normal size.

"I'm on my way, my hotel is about half an hour drive away, but I'm going to go to an Oasis cafe nearby instead. See you on Oasis!" She turned off the chat in a hurried frenzy. Wade blinked staring at the "partner disconnected" screen for a moment before it dissipated. He shook off a feeling of disbelief. Was she excited at the prospect of the Oasis being in danger?

A knock on the door broke him out of his thoughts.

"Sir?" A deep muffled voice from outside asked. It was Anton.

"Yeah?" Wade shot back, he had just made it to his chair and was about to sit down. He leaned heavily against the desk, taking a deep sigh hoping it wasn't more bad news.

"We couldn't get in contact with Shoto or Aech, but we've sent them messages detailing them about the situation and about our next course of action. A handful of the tops of leaderboards aren't online or haven't responded to our message, but some have agreed to meet us. Two of them happened to be nearby and have been vetted and escorted into the lobby area. The rest of us are awaiting your orders."

"Give me a second, I'll be there." He responded to Anton. He acknowledged him formally before walking away. Wade listened for the landfalls of his feet to fade away before sighing heavily. He frowned. His girlfriend, Samantha, left him hanging, his best friend was nowhere to be found, and his only other close friend Shoto was probably busy.

His thoughts drifted to his younger asian friend. Akihide Karatsu was the digital brother of Toshiro Yoshiaki, and was definitely more forthcoming and social than his other half. He had taken to the death of Daito very painfully, becoming more engrossed in taking down IOI than the hunt. The competition had spurred IOI to feed their inner evil, of which Shoto made sure they reaped what they had sown. During the battle at the final gate, Nolan Sorrento and IOI had received a bunch of powerful mech-vehicles for completing the second gate. Nolan of course, was in the nearly indestructible Mechagodzilla, while there were ten other mechs that IOI had piloted. Parzival, Art3mis, Shoto, and Aech all had their own respective mechs, but tried to circumvent Mechagodzilla in the chaos of the battle since Mechagodzilla had an incredibly powerful incinerating fire breath that deleted anything it touched. Shoto had, despite the gravity of the competition, sacrificed himself as the main decoy, and even managed to slice off one of Nolan's arms, using the God Breaker from the Brave Raideen mech he was piloting.

After the battle had been over, Wade was busy taking care of legality matters with Ogden Morrow, Percy his lawyer, and the collective executive cabinet of GSS. Shoto had left promptly back to Japan on one of Ogden's jets. His intent, was to try to bring down IOI by himself.

Wade did not intend to let him do such an important task by himself, and neither did Sam or Helen.

Before the battle at Castle Anorak, Wade had purposefully gotten himself indentured in one of IOI's camps so he could infiltrate the IOI camp hiding under the giant indestructible shield generated by the Orb of Osuvox. He had used backdoor hacks sold by contracted hackers on the black market to gain access to IOI's servers on their intranet when he was imprisoned. This is how he had hijacked a supply bot within the IOI defensive perimeter and get it to kamikaze against the wizard who was upholding the Orb of Osuvox spell to start the battle of Castle Anorak. As a benefit of gaining complete control of IOI's database, he had discovered they had recorded all of their criminalistic activities, from killing all the innocent people in his stack, ordering the death of Daito, and tapping into illegal personal information from internet access points. This was the ammunition to use against Nolan and IOI.

He offered Shoto a position within the company, but he refused, stating he wasn't old or mature enough for the honor of such a title. He instead, asked for a relatively small portion of funds to continually attack and hopefully bankrupt IOI with the evidence and repeated legal and marketing attacks.

A year later, Shoto had accomplished little. IOI had many enemies, and were incredibly experienced with defending themselves and enduring the length of legal battles. It reminded Wade of why he hated the government so much, as the laws that were in place were easily influenced by simply funding their campaigns, elections, and lifestyles. IOI had many politicians in their pocket, and only the most irrefutable of evidence was able to damage them in anyway.

Nolan Sorrento had gotten a light sentence in prison based off of plea deals, influencing the jury and the judge behind closed doors. He was to spend only 9 more years in prison, with a high probability of him being released on parole for "good behavior."

The company was racked with harsher negative propaganda, due to a larger public outcry and because of Shoto's efforts aided by GSS. Ogden had a powerful network of friends in varying locations, whom Shoto relied on to apply strong pressure on IOI. Despite those notions, the results were meager over the last year. The CEO of IOI had retired early, and two of the eight board of directors resigned. Though their stock plummeted, because they were the largest distributor of internet, they survived.

Shaking the thoughts of the past from his head, Wade stood up and exited his office. There were eight Oasis bays outside, and coincidentally there were six staff members and two others outside. Dexter, Evelyn, and Andrea formed a tight circle, going over the contents of Andrea's clipboard, discussing between themselves. Anton and the two security guards that were by Arthur's office were also discussing something with Anton. Upon his entry, they quickly shifted and stood side by side at attention, with their hands behind their backs.

Two faces he didn't recognize stood near each other. An acne-faced boy who looked in his mid-twenties with dark brown hair stood leaning against the wall, eying the assortment of arcade machines as if weighing whether or not he wanted to play them. He had light tanned skin, a bushy beard and mustache below a rather large nose and bored brown eyes. He wore normal clothes, but interestingly enough also wore a black leather duster despite the scorching heat outside.

There was a short girl, noticeably younger with long pink hair and a pink backpack that had a cartoon character Wade couldn't identify. It looked like a panda bear with pink where black should be, and had a large pink star on his belly. She was on one of the motorcycle arcade games that imitated some sci-fi world with a limited race track. She was in first place, expertly cutting the corners efficiently to minimize speed loss.

Anton coughed loudly, and the programmers looked up to see Wade enter the room. Andrea whistled over to the younger two. The boy perked up and turned to Andrea, before eying Wade with a casual but respectful look. The girl hopped off the bike immediately, leaving the game running as she dashed over next to the boy, hiding behind him as she eyed the rest of them carefully by his arm.

He raised an eyebrow at Andrea who coughed before motioning over to the two.

"This is David and Cherry." David walked up next to Andrea, looking over to Wade with analyzing eyes. Cherry, on the other hand, gazed at him with awe.

"David is currently placed second on Craft Clash. He also previously held several speed-building records for tier-five and higher crafting challenges." Wade nodded, impressed.

Craft Clash is a game mode within the Oasis that is recognized as a popular competitive sport. In it, a hundred or so players queue up for a battle royale styled mode. A map is randomly generated and players are instantly teleported randomly over the map. Unique to this mode however, there are no weapons on the map but plenty of crafting materials. Players instead must craft their armor, weapons, vehicles, and possibly even allies and defeat every other player.

Crafting challenges are like quests that can be attempted at any time on specific zones that are typically crafting themed zones. Players attempt the challenge which usually consists of a request to build a specific item, vehicle, building, using an assortment of randomly generated goods. You typically earn an achievement, some credits and experience for it, but there is a speed leaderboard which Wade assumed David held some of the top speeds for doing so. No easy feat.

David didn't move a muscle after his introduction, he just stared intently at Wade making him feel a little uncomfortable. David appeared to be deep in thought, probably considering what he thought about Wade. Then, he suddenly spoke. "Call me Chaos." His voice crackled with an odd mix of deep accent with a pitch a notch too high.

Andrea motioned to the girl.

"This is Cherry, she's rank five on the leaderboard of Demolition Rally, on planet Velocity. It's noted she has one of the highest KDL on deathmatch racing."

Demolition Rally was one of the more popular events on planet Velocity, a planet dedicated to all types of racing events. It was a planet that was in the shape of a huge wheel, with a gaping hole in the center that usually was filled with space races. Demolition Rally was a combat focused race that spanned from one side of the planet back to its original starting point. Essentially, you had to drive, sail, tunnel, or fly your way through hundreds of checkpoints that basically made you loop the whole planet. There were no rules, as long as you made it through the checkpoint. There were many strategies involved. However, Wade assumed that since she had an incredibly high KDL, which was a kill-death-lap ratio she was an incredibly combat and race tuned driver/pilot. Wade was surprised, considering how young she was to be so good at that. She definitely wasn't old enough to drive in the real world.

Cherry made a gesture to Wade that he didn't understand. She puffed one cheek, placed a thumb on that cheek, and flicked it off, extending her index finger out and mouthing an explosion sound. David, still staring at Wade noticed his confused face and looked at the younger girl.

"That's a racer's salute. It's a symbol of respect." David answered, without Wade even asking. She then hummed and David looked at her. She made a bunch of gestures with her hands, to which Wade recognized was sign language. Cherry was a pro racer who was deaf? Wade raised an eyebrow, grunting in awe.

"They were nearby when I sent the messages, and gave them access to come in after they had agreed to the terms of their admittance to the GSS building." Andrea continued. "There are about fifty or so other players who answered the calls and are waiting for further instructions."

Wade nodded, motioning for Andrea he is ready. She gave him a thumbs-up.

"Greetings Oasis players." Wade started, surveying his staff and the two players in front of him. Andrea aimed her smart watch at Wade, capturing him to relay the message to many other who awaited him in the Oasis. He made sure to address them in a general sense.

Normally, Wade was timid, and hated attention. His years as a Gunter trained him to stay under the radar, work for himself and stay away from others. But the year working as the head of GSS and his friendships with Sam, Helen, Akihide, and Ogden hardened his resolve against public eye. He now, more than ever, wanted to use his wealth to create a perfect world to escape the harsh realities of the world, and give people something to look forward to outside the corruption and the inevitable doom of the world. But Arthur is looking to destroy the Oasis before he could even start, and he won't allow that.

"We're all going to board our ships and meet up at Erywing gate by Zullidan. One of my programmers has created a little surprise for me, and I wanted to share it with the most acclaimed players Oasis has to offer. Though your expertises vary heavily, I know at the very least you're all adept at combat. I know not what is it to come, so that is why I've asked all of you to accompany me in this new region."

Wade took a gamble that calling the new sector was created for him to entice the players without revealing the severity of the situation. He didn't want news about Arthur's threat leaking to the public, and had told his staff to keep a tight lip, not even mentioning it to each other in closed doors.

There was a chorus of cheers and exclamatory remarks.

"Can we record this?"

"Can we stream this?"

"Can we invite others?"

"How dangerous is it?"

"Is it a PvP zone?"

"Are we the first!?"

"Is there going to be loot?"

"How long will this take?"

Dozens of players began spamming questions towards Wade. Feeling slightly overwhelmed at first, his experience with constant media pressure allowed him to reign in his emotions and answer the questions calmly.

"Right now, I am unaware if streaming or recording functionality will be available. I advise you that if Oasis verified software does not allow for it in this sector, do not attempt to circumvent it with your own software. As far as inviting others, I would advise against it because I am not sure how dangerous it is. You could all die, losing all of your gear and loot. Though I did invite you here, it is because you are the best and I won't resurrect you or give you freebies. You should only invite those who are able to come here after we figure out what sort of obstacles we face. I'm not sure if it will be PvP or restrictions on magic and/or technology. Yes, you are among the first. I do not know if there will be loot and how long this will take."

There was a bit of silence after he spoke. They digested his information, and also probably were private messaging their friends and communities. Wade banked on the eagerness and curiosity of these players to ignore the lack of information. Perhaps they would go because it's the Parzival asking. He would hope they would be his guinea pigs, despite the risk because of his reputation.

"Alright let's get going. Meet you at the gate." Wade dismissed the other players and turned to the staff in the room. He pointed to the Oasis bays that sat in the middle of the room and mentioned for them to go in them.

"Full body suits? You got just gloves and headset?" David asked.

The Oasis requires just a GSS headset and haptic gloves to dive into the world. There is an arsenal of buttons and sensors in all haptic gloves so you can move around and turn with decent precision. Many people enjoyed using the full body suits because it gave maximum precision and utility to the physical factors of the Oasis. However, there were those who preferred to use the gloves only, as it was less taxing and they did not want the extreme precision.

Wade thought of Aech, his heavy-set friend who somehow became one of the best FPS players in the world using only gloves. It appeared David also preferred to not use the full body suits. Wade gestured to the same spot where all the suits were held in storage cabinets next to each bay.

"The bays are equipped for users who don't want to use full body suits. You'll find a seat where you can sit comfortably and the bay will recognize which equipment you want to use and configure it for you." Wade answered. David nodded and followed the others who had already moved to the Oasis Bays to set up.

As Wade stepped back into his office, his smartwatch lit up. Sam messaged him asking him where to meet up and he sent her the info concerning the gate they're all converging at. She didn't respond. He cocked his head a little, but ignored his concern. This was Sam after all, the love of his life.

He walked over to what appeared to be a blank wall. He waved his hand in an upward motion palm facing towards the wall and a mechanical whoosh sound emitted. The wall opened outward, small mechanical arms shifting pushing the compartment outward revealing a couple custom full body Oasis suits.

He smiled as this thumb rubbed along the seam of the suit. The smell of high quality fibers was a welcome aroma. It had been a week since his last honest trek into the Oasis, and nearly three months since an extended play session. Most of the time was spent administering and trying to keep the Oasis fresh and relatively safe. Seldom did he have time to just… let loose.

Wade eagerly put the suit on, enjoying the way it snugly hugged his body closely. He flexed his fingers when he stretched his hands to the end of the arm sleeves, liking the almost powerful feel. Like putting on power armor before a battle with aliens.

"Shift to Oasis full body suit configuration." He spoke, and the room whirred to life as his desk and other unnecessary things in the room were swallowed by the floor. A slim harness fell from the middle of ceiling, wires connecting to it keeping it suspended at perfect height for Wade. Along with the harness, the iconic Oasis headset hung from the Harness, ready and waiting.

He walked up to it, efficiently slipping in it as it magnetically hooked to anchors on the suit. As soon as he did, four large fans emerged from the corners of the room, under them were drainage holes. Above him, a couple of pipes emerged capped with a shower-head that had multiple modes. Along with it, a small black box poked out near the pipes.

Kriegan's Temperature Fans, Trinsin Liquid Simulators, and Red Sun's Smellotron would near perfectly simulate whatever environment Wade would stumble across. The permanently raining world of Floris would have the pipes sprinkle cold waters, the Smellotron releasing a musky smell, and the fans would draw the humidity out of the air while pumping cold winds whenever he felt them. They were smart enough to stop delivering liquid and pumped heat if he got out of the rain and created a campfire.

Wade slipped on the goggles and it scanned his eyes, before logging in instantly. As he materialized where he was last logged in, he saw the nostalgic and iconic message across his screen.

"Ready Player One."

* * *

A/N: Sorry for having a long chapter two with no action AGAIN. I know you are expecting zombies, and about 10k+ words in not a single mention of them yet, but I felt like I had to address the time transition and a lot of other factors before diving in the world. If you've stuck around this long, know that I plan on a heavy shift on action, adventure, and drama to come!


	4. Chapter 3: Man your Battle Stations

A/N: FINALLY some action! I really appreciate you sticking around this far in continuing reading! Let me know with a review what you think! AHHHH This was so fun to write!

* * *

Chapter Three: Man Your Battle Stations!

Wade felt the familiar sensation of G-forces from logging in, blurred lines whizzed past his head as he flew toward a light with incredible speed. The harness flung him in a circle emulating what he saw. A perk of having an incredibly expensive, but also an incredibly amazing Oasis simulation bay.

He spawned in his last login spot, which was Anorak Castle. He felt himself form next to a wooden chair, in front of an old and ornate desk. This was the study on top of the tallest tower within Halliday's fortress. He breathed in through his nose, the Smellotron had immediately released the scent of old wood and papyrus scrolls. It was a comforting aroma, one that he grew accustomed to relax with.

He closed his right hand into a fist, then quickly extended all of his fingers in an exploding motion in front of him. This created a menu that spawned a few feet from his face. This menu was very different from every other player within the Oasis, besides Ogden Morrow of course. It was the Game Master menu, which was much more extensive and gave incredible god-like powers of various capabilities. Basically, he could do whatever he wanted in anyway at anytime.

Even then, he seldom used many of the abilities that the GM menu entailed, though several tempted him on occasion. He remembered once he had generated a sea made of gold coins, and swam in it fighting robotic giant squids with his bare hands. It was awesome.

Now, he needed to get to the pre-designated gate. Finding the prompt he wanted on the menu, he selected "Teleport" and it created a new window in front of him.

"Erywing Gate." Parzival spoke, and the prompt filled itself out. The input box disappeared, the window expanded, refilling with a miniature representation of the gate floating in space. The representation was on a 3D plane, with minimal features shown other than outlines filled with transparent bland colors like grey and light blue.

On this window, Parzival could choose exactly where he wanted to teleport, an ability granted only to those with administrator privileges, and of course a GM such as himself. There was a feature that was special to him only however, which he planned to exploit.

After a few more selections, his avatar evaporated with a whooshing sound. His teleport rustling a few scrolls and blowing out a few candles, which promptly relit themselves again.

* * *

Anton flexed his fingers, balling them into a fist and stretching them out again. He avoided being in the Oasis as much as possible, his job required him to actively protect GSS from physical threats just as much as digital ones. He had others deal with security issues concerning anything on the Oasis, preferring reality. He could trust reality, but within the Oasis, your reality is warped and manipulated. In this case however, it was uncharted territory and he needed to accompany Wade personally rather than observe through a screen Arthur could just as easily access and manipulate. He had posted his most trusted guards in the lobby, with specific instructions to not allow access to the floor regardless of circumstance.

He eyed his name, which was above his near infinite health bar and mana. He had made it halfheartedly, and it stared back at him dimly as if annoyed with how uncreative it was. Anton18, he had tried 17 earlier attempts at getting the name and was surprised it took that long.

His vision filled with a flawless white room, with nothing in it except for a thin outline of a similarly colored door. This was an unfurnished room within a GSS fortress inside of the Oasis, one of thousands. He often liked to go into these rooms to focus on other tasks, as they were typically sound and sensation proof.

Two party requests appeared in front of his face. Both were from the other security personnel. Named respectively "Andrew22" and "Mason4." They took after him apparently without his expressive orders that they had not needed to. The discipline and strictness of the rest of the job must have rubbed off on their username. He snorted in amusement, accepting both of their party requests before teleporting them all to Erywing gate.

They materialized about a couple hundred meters in front of the gate, floating and gently swaying adrift. Anton blinked at the massive light coming from the portal, nearly needing to shield his eyes with his hands. The portal looked like a giant pool of blue mist with massive torrents of white lightning swimming about within it. Bordering the portal was a network of metal pipes and structures that somehow held the portal together. In addition, there were defensive turrets and NPC mages spread every couple of meters or so to protect the portal. Which meant you could destroy or capture the portal for yourself if you truly wanted to.

The portal with the structures together spanned about ten thousand meters in height and width. The size was able to allow capital ships to fly through with relative ease, or small fleets to come out all at once. Every gate within Oasis was at least this size, with larger gates at more concentrated space battle sectors.

They opened their menus and selected a small fighter class ship and chose to summon it. A bright light exploded around them in a flash, suddenly hardening into metal and glass. In a moment, the three were in fully constructed GSS standard fighter-class ships. These were small, thin, and armed with two laser cannons and two missile banks. They were a pristine white, with a black strip across the side that allowed for a white insignia of "GSS" on the side. It was sleek, fast, and powerful despite its size, as it was outfitted with the best the Oasis had to offer for fighter-class ships. Andrew looked over at Anton and saluted at him from his cockpit. The ship looked like a surgical tool. Some of his personnel loved the GSS Wasp, but he preferred his Minotaur.

Anton felt weak in these fighter ships, preferring to use a frigate-sized assault ship to intimidate players. However, when using the teleport function, you could only bring your avatar and not your surroundings with you, and only small vehicles could be placed in your inventory unless they were artifacts. The rest had to be stored in secured garages and hangars. With the queue time for this portal probably beginning to pile up, there was no way he would get his frigate here in time. Besides, he needed speed and not firepower at the moment.

Parzival materialized in his Serenity transport vessel about a thousand meters above him. The ship was smaller than most starships, but was about twenty times larger than your average fighter and bomber. He probably used his GM privileges to circumvent the teleportation handicap. The ship had the iconic shape of the Firefly ships from an old sci-fi television show. Anton had not watched the show, but he knew that the ship was not fitted for combat and was curious about why he would choose that ship to travel in.

' _Probably because of his GM powers he doesn't need to worry._ ' Anton thought, scratching his chin. He had heard once of Ogden Morrow using his GM powers to vaporize hundreds of players in a single stroke. A frightening thought if those players lost anything significant, though at the time they were IOI employees so he didn't necessarily care.

There was a blur in the corner of his eyes, and the programmers materialized in the distance.

They opened their menus and summoned their ships immediately. Unlike his team however, their vessels were domed vehicles without armaments. Their ships were made of many round bulbous shapes, and he had been told once that the design mimicked an old vehicle called a Volkswagen Beetle.

Anton watched the vehicles conjure into existence around their occupants, before they abruptly faded away. The vehicles they used had enhanced shielding and cloaking abilities, the hackers were not interested in combat, instead rather observing and using their administrative HUD to manipulate the Oasis.

He had once asked why they didn't just stay in their offices and use the full range of their suite to manipulate the software then, but they had replied that their vehicles were equipped with a repertoire of functions the real world couldn't simulate. Intricate AI that had macro commands usable by audio, a way of manipulating the code in a 3d space, transparent keyboards that typed simply with simple finger movements, amongst many other oddities Anton wouldn't care to understand.

"Form up on Wade." Anton said into his party comm, opting to call his young boss by his real name rather than his username. The ships flew with military-like precision, accelerating into a triangle around the Serenity ship which had not moved since teleporting into the sector.

Anton peered into the transport's cockpit through the viewing glass, and saw Wade's avatar sitting at the helm, unmoving. A small speech bubble hovered next to his face, indicating he was in a personal chat room or call with someone.

The portal buzzed to life, with ships beginning to pour from the gate. Traffic at Erywing gate was relatively slow and infrequent, as the planet that bordered the gate was nothing more than a mining planet for low-tier materials. Zullidan was considered a decent starting planet, though with the age of Oasis not many people were low level or required low level materials. This of course, was not accounting for the non-combative users which took up about 70% of the Oasis population. However, news must have traveled quickly, since ships of many sizes began phasing through the portal at rather impressive numbers.

Anton had viewed a spectacle similar to this before, at the battle of Castle Anorak on Cthonia when Wade had called for the help of the Oasis players and Gunters to overthrow IOI. Anton remembered wishing to hell and back that he could have participated in that fight, but the rules of the contest strictly forbid any GSS employee or their family members from participating in anything that would help them or a friend acquire the Egg.

At first, it was a few ships trickling through the portal, but soon it was dozens, and then hundreds. Everything from tiny personal transport ships to capital sized dreadnoughts used for full scale wars flew through that gate.

It astonished Anton how many ships there were, especially considering how poor most of the world was, they couldn't afford the expensive upkeep of fuel and parts for ships of any class. Most users who were middle class still didn't even bother with purchasing or using ships, rather opting for the teleportation and taxi services instead. No, there had to be ships that belonged to clans that had officers leading them, that or rich corporations that employed users to fly ships under their banner. Yes, Anton immediately recognized some of them. The unmistakable yellow trim and dragon insignia of the Guan Gunners, from Shanghai. The utilitarian grey and black of the bounty hunter clan known as "The Hounds." He also saw press ships scattering through, camera drones flowing from them like a school of fish separating to get tons of angles. This was becoming a clusterfuck.

Within five minutes, at least a thousand ships filled the space around the gate. Fireworks fired from one ship. Rap music started blaring from speakers from another. Gunfire erupted all above him, some ships tried to ram each other, and this reminded Anton that this particular zone around this gate was a non-PvP zone. The bullets, missiles, and spells faded before it hit any other player controlled ship, and the ships harmlessly skid off each other as a result of the restriction.

This puzzled Anton, as if that was the case, were the defensive measures even necessary? His question was answered when a frigate fired medium class torpedoes at the gate, an explosion that sent shock waves through space and shook his ship despite it being so far away. The blast had destroyed dozens of turrets and mages and shattered a section of the outer ring, but since there were literally hundreds of turrets and mages that mattered little. The gate's bright blue translucent pool turned a vibrant red, and a horn suddenly blared loudly. The turrets and mages turned towards the frigate, and in a continuous concentrated fire of turrets and mage spells obliterated the frigate within seconds. It looked like a vortex of fire and heavy caliber rounds funneled into a single point in space. The explosion was spectacular, a gentle shock wave bumping his fighter. The wreckage and coins prompted for a mad dash of looting and scavenging of the remains, while the ship that had previously been blasting rap music then spammed an air horn.

The gate then recognized the frigate had no party members or other nearby players with clan affiliations, and returned to its blue hue, allowing for ships to pass through again. The mages and turrets did not respawn however, instead there was a tiny light that indicated they were slowly being constructed. This allowed for concentrated attempts to overtake the gate.

Anton snorted at the frigate who foolishly attacked the gate. He assumed that the frigate was not intentionally firing on the gate, but instead was repeatedly mock firing into a friend or enemy and they missed or the target moved allowing for the rounds to hit the gate. The frigate was relatively average as far as frigates go, but it still would have cost millions of gold to acquire. That was hundreds of real USD gone in a blink. A fortune to many, a drop in the bucket for few.

Soon, ships began circling towards Parzival's ship in a feverish swarm of passionate fans and envious critics. Anton had to even mute his player generated audio, which was a mess of convoluted noises because of how many people that tried to communicate with Wade. It looked like a cloud of ants all trying to tend to their queen, with players even ejecting from their ship so they could touch the ship with their virtual hands.

Anton's ship was brushed aside by larger ships, while it took no damage the Oasis did not allow for two objects to be in the same place and calculated physics quite accurately. This however, seemed to not apply to Wade's ship, as though even a massive cruiser rammed the immensely smaller classed ship, it was the cruiser that got shoved aside.

Suddenly, his ship disappeared, reappearing hundreds of meters away, in plain sight of every other ship. Everyone froze. Or rather, this was incorrect, every ship was frozen. Anton could move around within his cockpit, but he found that whatever movement command he gave to his ship it did not register. He moved the control wheel of his ship left and right, pitching it up and down and switched between going forward and backward but his ship did not move.

Then, with an oddly eerie effect, every ship slowly turned so that the majority of it's viewing ports, or at the very least the cockpit was all angled at Parzival's Firefly ship. Everyone became muted as well, the sounds of the blaring music and other random ambiance vanishing into an ominous silence. Anton tested this, by speaking and indeed no sound came out even though in real life he could feel his mouth working and throat vibrate. He found that even trying to circumvent this with his admin commands did not work. Frightening how much power the GM had even over his administrative staff. Over the Oasis.

From Wade's ship, he suddenly phased outside in front of his vessel. He then grew substantially, becoming roughly the size of a gigantic monster from the sci-fi movies of old, probably at least fifty stories high. His features, though enlarged were not blurry or even remotely odd looking. If anything, Anton thought they looked even more distinct. The pores on his face were easily seen, lines of hair that were the size of rivers, all the tiniest details became magnified but astonishingly detailed.

"I see my invitation had spread word quite quickly." Parzival spoke, his voice booming and loud. It shook the hull of Anton's ship, the shock wave of his voice powerful yet not ear-poppingly painful.

"I'm sorry I had to freeze and mute you all, but I'm afraid what I have to say is very important."

Anton felt a chill run down his spine. He was fond of Wade, and saw him like his own son. That being said, when Wade showed authority it filled him to the brim with pride for some reason he couldn't explain. It was also awe-striking how even though he had been around when the Oasis first came into fruition, the power that Wade seemed to have was immeasurable.

* * *

Parzival took a deep breath, but locked it out of his avatar so it would not mimic the action he took. He looked towards the crowd of onlookers. Thousands of people staring at him, most likely millions if not billions if they were streaming this. Sure enough, he noticed some floating cameras around some ships pointed directly at him. His heart was racing, and he could hear his heartbeat drum loudly in his ears. He needed to continue, and to get the players to help him stop what Arthur had in mind.

"First, I welcome all of you to this impromptu invitation! It's nice to see that my popularity hasn't faded!" He smiled broadly gesturing wide at everyone who was here. Parzival noticed new ships come through the portal that became instantly vector locked, their orientation pointing at him but really far away. He drew his finger and thumb together on both hands to form a box around all the ships in the distance, and then waved his index finger toward himself. The ships zipped into the crowd of other ships that were congregated not too far from him. He contemplated making a continuous command but figured he didn't have much else to say. There were already many people watching him.

"If you don't know already, there is a new sector that even I don't know what's in it!" He tried to sound excited, hoping to get people's hopes up so they would be energetic.

"I will warn you, because of that I'm not sure what will be in there. But I have been told that this new planet will be perilous and dangerous!" He watched some people talk to each other, their friends, and their audiences, even though no sound was made because of the zone mute he put on the area. He could tell it did not affect the other ways they found to circumvent it.

"What better way to explore this new world then with a grand competition!" Parzival made fireworks explode out of nowhere, with confetti suddenly showering the mass of ships. He also spawned leprechaun bots that flew around, mischievously laughing as they threw handfuls of gold at the players ships. Parzival had to make this seem lavish and amazing to entice the players.

"The competition is this: Whoever survives for a hundred days wins many riches!" He bellowed. He couldn't think of any other way to incentivize the players to partake in this competition, so he decided to mask it over the one Arthur had made. He hoped that Arthur would not mind how he took control of this opportunity to leverage his reputation to get people to participate. Wade had amassed a lot of wealth, more so then he knew what to do with. He didn't mind giving a monetary prize to the players even if it was out of his own pocket.

"I will explain the nitty details later but for now, let us explore this new sector in earnest! I release you, now follow me!" Wade yelled, and unlocked all players and their audio. He spawned gigantic trumpets and drums that automatically played an epic regal tune. Hundreds of NPC men and women materialized on floating stages that danced to the music, beckoning the players forward.

After they realized they could move and speak, an explosion of sound came from all the players, as well as the cacophony of engines that roared to life as they blasted forward. He turned, warping back into his vessel, engaging flight controls and thrusting his ship towards the new world.

They all faced the bright dusty planet of Arthur's creation. It loomed in the distance, not too far away. At the fastest speeds ships had to offer, that was the racing ships that went a fourth the velocity of light, could get there in about five minutes or less from the gate. He pushed his ship forward, accelerating to a hundred meters a second within moments. Ships zoomed past him of many sizes. He saw tiny personal ships that barely did anything other than carry the person, to large cruisers that flew with such force that he could see ripples in space from the banks of engine ports that blew out blinding explosive light.

Ships began to fly parallel and all around Parzival, including Anton and his two security personnel, their GSS ships distinct from the other ships. Some ships tried to block Parzival's path, an attempt to be funny or troll but they were easily knocked aside by him immunizing the ship to any sort of damage or obstacle. Those were few. Many ships flew next to him, above him, below him, and behind him. He didn't know why they did this. Perhaps they were reverent of what he did a year ago, he couldn't be sure. But it was sure to at least be because of his popularity and status.

Ahead of him, many ships had stopped. Parzival raised an eyebrow at what he saw. No, they didn't stop.

They were crashing into an invisible wall.

Ships exploded in the distance as the most fast and eager suddenly slammed into an unyielding force. Like a car driving headfirst into a concrete barrier hundreds of meters thick. The cruiser that had used every engine to burn at the strongest ratio it could attempted to turn away, but the momentum it carried was too strong, and it slammed into the invisible wall at an odd angle, cracking the ship into two before its core became unstable and detonated. The ships in the front turned and engines turned blue as they all attempted to break or reverse.

There were screams, words of warning, laughter, exclaims of awe at what they saw from all the players around Parzival. The looting began again as ships fired tractor beams left and right. Ships crashed into each other like bumper cars, trying to shove their weight in to get the spoils. The pieces of ships could be used as salvage for their own crafting recipes, sold to recyclers, or melted down to be sold on the market. Floating loot from players who died were also scooped up by greedy players, while the crew who had survived raced to salvage loot from their friends either to keep it safe or for themselves. They had a limited amount of time they could be exposed to space before their avatars suffocated. Parzival watched some summon suits, while others dove into working airlocks of the remaining parts of their ship. A few people cursed at Parzival, implicating that they blamed him for this obstacle. He ignored them. Apparently, this wall could hurt the ships. That meant the ships could hurt it.

Ships all around Parzival finally huddled to a stop, with some firing light rounds at the invisible wall. Soon, every ship began to fire at it. Missiles, small and large turret fire, lasers of varying size, and even small nuclear payloads detonated on the invisible wall with no effect. This was reminding Parzival of the shield that IOI had used to encase Castle Anorak. Explosions and tracer light from all the rounds dispersed against the wall lit up the space. It was deafening when you were near it all, the volume of all the weapons firing overcoming the sound of even his own thoughts. Parzival stared intently at the barrier. Normally, when anything touched a shield, especially if it had a strong damage weight behind it, it caused ripples of energy within the shield. That was just the way shields were created in the Oasis. However, whatever was blocking the ship was definitely not a shield. There were no ripples. It was as if the wall just swallowed up the attacks itself. Deleting them almost.

Parzival moved downward along the wall, his entourage of security following close with him.

A few ships followed, some starstruck fans and stalkers moved their ships to follow Parzival as if there was a hidden secret only he knew. There was none, he just wanted to inspect… whatever this thing was. As the weapon dispersal faded away, he noticed something odd. This barrier resembled the edge of the Oasis space. Granted, the Oasis was the biggest world by a thousand-fold over of every map combined in games ever created, it still was odd to be next to a copy of the game barrier.

He eyed the brown planet off in the distance, a tiny shimmer of light coming from the space station that orbited around it.

' _Is this a puzzle, Arthur?_ ' He asked himself. He drew his hands up, prompting his GM menu to appear in front of him. He selected invisibility and ethereal before applying it to himself. He immediately felt nothing. The strap of the chair, the gentle atmosphere of his ship, it all faded from his sense of touch. It was as if his sensors received zero feedback, and he only felt the familiar weight of the wires attached to his suit.

Parzival drifted out of his ship toward the barrier. The ships above had slowly stopped their firing, and were trying different methods of passing like he was. He moved in front of it, floating a few inches away and stretched out a hand. The glove emulated a smooth feel with slight friction, probably trying to replicate something that resembled glass.

' _Glass? There's no shield or barrier that's ever felt like glass._ ' He thought.

Without warning a black sleeved arm shot out of nowhere, a gloved hand gripped his wrist tightly.

"Gotcha." An eerily cheerful deep voice laughed. Parzival gasped in surprise as suddenly his ethereal and invisibility abilities disappeared from him in a second.

An ashen face with sunglasses poked out and leaned forward from the same spot the arm came from. It was Arthur, giving an ear to ear smile that contorted his face. He had a bemused expression as he intently stared at Parzival.

"Can't let you use these!" He said teasingly, and without letting Parzival respond, he disappeared without a trace.

Parzival stared blankly at the space ahead of him. There was a loud ruckus above him but he was too shocked to notice. He quickly summoned his menu.

It was the default menu.

"No… no…" Parzival whispered to himself in horror. He eyed his health and mana bar. They weren't blank anymore. 83,150 HP, and 14,048 MP. Level 99. Warrior-Mage.

"DAMNIT!" Parzival yelled, his anger and frustration flooding him like a torrent of rage.

"Sir!" Anton yelled loudly, his ship hovering next to Parzival.

"What!?" He growled, his face alight with fury. He wavered at the look on Anton's face. It was stoic, of course, but there was a sense of urgency at how he stared at Parzival.

"Arthur." He stated, almost simply, and cocked his head forward, indicating the direction. Parzival turned and… gaped.

In the distance, was a head of Albert Wesker larger than life. The head was easily hundreds of miles long, based on the fact that it looked larger than the planet behind it. The features were stretched beyond reason, but the distance of it made it seem reasonable. His head was easily the size of a moon.

"The barrier has also dissipated sir, a few ships have moved forward but have stopped when Arthur appeared."

Parzival felt sweat beads form at the top of his head. What was Arthur going to say? What was he going to do? How did he strip away his GM privileges!?

Arthur's avatar simply smiled, and then he began to disappear. His gigantic head began to dissipate into hundreds and thousands of little pixels. All in different directions.

Then those same pixels began to float towards all the players. They swirled and expanded as they approached them.

"What is that?" Anton asked, squinting. It was too far to see. Parzival reflexively opened up his interface menu to magnify, but then realized magnification was another administrator privilege power. He would have to specifically use an item or skill to do that now, like any other normal player.

He opened his inventory quickly and surveyed the contents. He still had about 150 items in his inventory, all of which were luckily end game quality items that he had carried into the iconic battle one year ago. Scrolling down, he quickly tapped a pair of sniping binoculars. The bulky black gear spawned above his hand, and he caught it swiftly before bringing it to his eyes to scan the distance.

The binoculars had spaceship level zoom built into its functionality, which Parzival used to view the moving pixels. His jaw dropped at what he saw. Millions of ships that looked like they were made of flesh were flying towards them.

Small all the way to Capital sized ships flew with appendages and grotesque horror like features dotting the hull of these ships. Eyeballs, arms, legs, tentacles, hair, scales, teeth, they looked like monsters straight out of a nightmare rather than anything Parzival had ever seen. There were even zombies running unaided but somehow still moving toward them.

He looked up, the players ships appeared to be buzzing with excitement and flew toward the zombies. Others stayed back, and others yet fled, not wanting to risk their ships and loot. As the ships scattered, that's when the absurdity of the Oasis' full creative freedom really kicked in.

"Is that… a giant… Banana?" Parzival asked to himself. Indeed, he saw a skyscraper sized banana with engines sticking out the rear blasting towards the zombies. Two rotating arms stuck out from the sides, which spun and threw bananas. He blinked as the bundles of potassium flew with immense momentum, before detonating on one zombie ship with a fierce explosion.

A giant buzzing sound like a weapon charging emanated above. Parzival scanned with his binoculars, switching to magic sourcing. He saw magical spells being cast, but nothing that made a buzzing of that caliber.

An artifact.

He switched it over to artifact seeking, and tiny circles filled his screens in the dozens. A few were circled red meaning they were currently in use, but Parzival needed to know that buzzing one. It sounded too much like…

He gasped, feeling a chill as the buzzing sound turned into a loud electrical discharge. A voice echoing that of a thousand cries filled the space with a deafening chill.

"BROKKR AND EITRI HEED MY CALL. FORGE THE DEATH OF MY ENEMY!" Parzival whipped his head over to the gathering of zombie ships and a glorious sight awaited him. The sight alone shot chills up his spine and electrified his arms. It was insane how the Oasis gave him such chills at how epic things could get.

Off by the fleet of zombie ships, two enormous dwarven ghosts appeared on either side of the swarm. The length of their bodies and size was that of the entire fleet itself. Each held a gigantic forge hammer and looked at each other. Then each hefted the weapon and swung at the ships, one from above and the other from below. As their hammers met, a shock wave of force spread in a gigantic explosion starting from the center. A horizontal disc shot out like a supernova, thousands of ships tearing apart in a mist of ripped flesh and matter.

As the sounds of the loud explosion faded from his hearing, the eruption of gunfire from above began to fill the space. A massive world war two ship flew by, its cannons firing indiscriminately at the mass of zombie ships. The fan at the rear that normally accompanied these naval ships was replaced by a bright blue engine that churned fuel earnestly as it pushed the ship forward.

Parzival was still frozen in awe as the two fleets eventually crashed into each other. In a way, it was like art, a beautiful orchestra of colorful death. Another artifact fired off, a mini black hole formed in the distance, pulling hundreds of zombie ships into its depths, never to be seen again.

A bunch of mages in a protective sphere floated in a tight circle, casting wave after wave of lightning that decimated any ship it touched.

He saw a group of individuals flying around with golden hair, firing energy blasts from their hands. Probably Dragon Ball fans who skinned a space suit with energy cannons to make it seem like they were actually characters from the show. Or, there were certain zones that changed how avatars and players worked completely, like seperate servers within Oasis that had modified rules that allowed players to become super powered heroes. However, outside of those worlds, their powers were drastically reduced or scaled to that of their respective levels and skills were modified appropriately.

Parzival watched as a gigantic shuriken flew threw a small zombie ship, slicing it in half, before exploding in a puff of smoke. Through the smoke, a yellow haired ninja with a metal headband flew out of the smoke, a bubble around his body, and he threw a volley of explosive kunai at a bunch of other ships.

A flock of witches on brooms circled a frigate sized zombie ship, its tentacles and appendages trying desperately to grab them, but they danced and dodged out of the way, flinging spells from wands at the ship whittling it down. A man with a lightning shaped scar on his head shot an ethereal unicorn out from his wand that charged into a zombie ship, exploding in a brilliant white wispy light.

Anton and his two guards had begun engaging any zombie ships that were on a trajectory course towards Parzival. Parzival wondered if Anton had also lost his administrator privileges, or if it was just him.

"Wade!" Andrea gasped over the intercom. He looked over at the left of his HUD on his helmet, a small window with her face showing up.

"Our ship, it has de-cloaked and the shields are missing!" She cried.

"What's more, is that our administrator privileges have been revoked! I can't do anything!" Dexter cried from the background of her picture.

"Well shit." Parzival said, turning around and beginning the process of getting back into his ship. In the mayhem of the zombies, all the players that were following him had either joined the fight, or left when they saw he wasn't participating. In the distance, the trio of oddly shaped white vessels that the Programmers were in flew over to Parzival.

"It means we can die!" Evelyn yelled, fear and excitement in her voice. "I've never died before, what happens? We get reset right!? What does that mean if we're an admin? Oooooooooh I want to know! But I don't! I don't. I don't."

Parzival raised an eyebrow, blinking at the odd exclamation from Evelyn.

"Wait… what is that?" Andrea said, her ship oriented towards the zombie mass of ships that had been obliterated by long range artillery and magic spells started to reform into their respective ships.

"They're regenerating." Parzival whispered. He watched as the ships that had been swallowed in the mini-black hole that had dissipated begin to reform as well. Then, the ships split. They multiplied. Each ship split into two after a few minutes after being destroyed.

"This battle won't end." Anton said, his voice strained. He and the other two guards were in the fight now, several zombie ships had made their way towards them, a good amount of the original player fleet was in the full swing of the battle with new reinforcements pouring in from the portal, which mixed with ships fleeing the fight or needing repairs.

"We can't just fight them." Parzival said. He looked beyond the zombie ships, and at the dusty planet that loomed no more than 30 minutes at his top speed away.

"We break through."

"What!? That's impossible! The players up above are in a stalemate with the zombie ships right now, but with them multiplying, there's no way we can do anything!" Andrea shouted over the intercom, still trying to regain access to her administrator privileges.

"You're right." Parzival said. "We can't do this alone. I'm going to get those who can to help me punch a hole through this swarm. Just like Ender's Game!"

"How are you going to do that?" Dexter asked, his face showing up on the comms drenched in sweat. Parzival noted the pressure the hacker team must be going through to perform with limited capabilities against their ex-coworker must be straining them.

"Before the big fight with IOI, I had amassed a bunch of items to coordinate attacks with players who were solo or who were in small bands. I'm planning to use these items now to get their attention."

Parzival opened his inventory with a wave of his hand and clicked on a folder tab that was labeled 'Comms.' A bunch of items showed up, he selected two of them and they both appeared in front of him, suspended in mid air. One was a bunch of tiny red shells that huddled together in neat stacks, and the other was a megaphone that materialized in his left hand.

He placed his hand over the control panel, and inputted a few commands that opened a metal circle and a canister opened up. He loaded the red shells into it and gripped the Megaphone harder which it then fired a whirring electrical sound similar to the Halo shield recharge. An interface shot out from the Megaphone with a single line of text with vertical arrows next to it. It currently read: "Loud Audio Vicinity." He tapped the arrow a few times until it read "Player Ping Vicinity." This would make anything he said in the Megaphone show up on the player's HUDs directly.

"Anton, you and your guys on me! Follow my lead!" Parzival barked, and pushed the accelerator to the max. He felt the G-forces shoot him back into his seat his harness shot forward to mimic the action, and the Serenity blasted forward. Adjusting quickly, he pressed a button on the control console and he felt the ship shake as blinding bright red flares fired continuously in every direction from his ship.

"Holy shit! This is awesome! WOOO!" He heard Evelyn cry in the comms as they followed him in their nearly unarmored and weaponless hacker vessels.

Parzival held the megaphone up to his mouth and then began to speak as clearly as he could while steering the ship with his other hand.

"Players of the Oasis! The zombie horde isn't thinning, in fact, they're actually multiplying! We have to punch through them and get to the planet! Follow my ship, and concentrate your fire on staying alive and moving forward! Follow the red flares!" He cried, his ship still continually firing volleys of red flares in a ring around his ship in two-second intervals.

Parzival flew forward, leading the charge as laser flechette rounds and missiles flew past his ship and intercepted zombie ships tearing them apart. Anton and his two guards might not be in the biggest of ships, but the GSS Wasps were outfitted with top tier fighter-classed weapons. Smaller zombie ships and individual flying zombies were killed almost immediately, flesh mass eviscerating and chunks of matter exploding in every direction.

But it was not enough, and Parzival felt his ship rock as it took a direct collision with a zombie ship that had a large fist coming out of the cockpit.

Heavy gunfire and spell-fire from other ships began to sprinkle in from other players as they followed Parzival's lead. Despite the coordinated effort, they were taking losses. A rear-view camera showed on one of his displays a Corsair Fensteel ship getting ripped in half by a giant zombie, while a side view camera displayed a Marvel Shield Helicarrier getting boarded by thousands of zombie bee insects. Some mages that had teamed up with pirates on a giant sailing boat, were overrun by heavily armored undead snakes.

Parzival turned his attention forward, the zombie hordes were thickening. He thought that if he passed where the majority of the zombies were congregated in the main battle, it would be a straight shot to the planet. However, it seemed that as he moved forward, more zombies begin to spawn in at alarming rates to intercept him. His shields did a good job of repelling most of the fighter or lighter classed-sized zombie ships, but he wouldn't be able to take a direct collision with anything bigger. Fortunately for him, his ship was known for its maneuverability and speed.

He marked the planet on his ship's HUD and it marked that the planet was about 10 OSD's away, which were Oasis Standard Distance measurements for space. He was currently going at .5 OSD a minute, which was much slower than he wished but he had to account for the shield strength and zombie congregation of the ships in front of him.

After a minute of him maneuvering through the cloud of ships, he started to notice that even more were spawning and aggressively trying to attack him and all the ships behind him. The flares his ships were firing were disappearing as they flew into zombie ships or when zombie ships flew in front of them. Players began to slowly veer off course as they were enveloped in defending themselves, forgoing following Parzival.

An explosion shook the ship, A zombie claw ripped through the shield and hull in the command room. Parzival quickly turned to see a gaping hole where a gray claw with thick pale blue veins now appeared. It slowly opened, revealing tiny little worms that shot out and onto his ship.

"Ugh! what?" He cried in disgust and surprise as they wriggled around on several control panels and consoles. They buried into them, Parzival cussed when he saw sparks fly from them and some of the panels lost their light and malfunctioned. Turning off the fire suppression system in the Command Room with a brief button press on his main console, he flicked a quick slot gesture and a small flamethrower appeared in his hand which he used to torch all the worms he could see and the claw. The worms disintegrated but the claw remained, the flesh searing and only melting a little. It pinched again, reaching further in the ship cutting halfway.

"Warning. Cockpit infrastructure failing." His ship warned.

"Anton! Bogey latched on me!" Parzival said on his commlink.

"Trying!" Anton yelled, his head appearing drenched in sweat as his eyes darted left and right rapidly. The zombie swarm was becoming increasingly dense, and they were still about 8 OSD away. His entourage was too busy defending themselves now to be properly escorting and paving the way.

A scream from Andrea signaled to him that her defenseless ship was finally down. Dexter and Evelyn had fallen long before. He felt his breath hitch as he took a deep breath, trying to settle his nerves.

Calming himself, he opened his inventory out again, flipping the auto pilot switch on as he ran over to the claw. A metallic cylinder appeared in his hand, and a bright blue glow emanated out from it. A light saber. Slashing through the claw was easy enough, he heard a deep growl from outside his hull as the claw retracted. Instantly the vacuum of space tried to swallow him through so he bent his knees and grabbed a vacant command seat that was bolted into the ground.

Opening up his inventory again, he selected another gun that looked like a giant jelly bean with a handle, before aiming it at the hole and firing. A thick gray liquid fired out, foaming up as it covered the breach before hardening. It was a Riot Foam gun with a cement variant. With the breach sealed he holstered both items and rushed back to the pilot seat. He was greeted with a giant mouth opening up to swallow his ship whole.

"AHH!" Parzival yelped, before diving the nose of his ship downwards to evade. His quick reflexes saved him, but the giant zombie swiped at him with an open hand and grabbed his ship, effectively stopping him in motion. He could hear the hull of the Serenity groan as it was being crushed, alarms and the AI voice howling in warning.

This was it. This was where he was going to perish. He opened up his inventory quickly to look at other vehicle mounts that he had. There was only a small personal carrier with no weapons, useless.

"Damnit!" He cussed, quickly formulating a plan.

Suddenly, an explosion rocked his ship, and it flew forward again. Parzival jumped for the wheel, anchoring himself back in the pilot's chair as he looked at external camera screens to see what happened. Half of the screens were blank, but one revealed a few floating fingers the size of school buses rolling through space. Someone had shot him free.

"Yes!" Parzival exclaimed breathlessly, continuing to fly towards the planet. The marker said 7 OSD's left. He didn't think he'll make it unless a miracle happened. He evaded a flesh missile by banking left, and then rolled as dozens of elongated zombie arms shot from another ship trying to latch onto him. Then, something hit him, jerking him in his seat.

"What was that?" He asked aloud, trying to read the scanners. Smoke began to fill the command room, and he remembered that he shut off the fire suppression system. Turning it back on, the vents and sprinklers began working, beginning to clear the room.

"Multiple breaches detected. Movement detected in cargo room." The AI responded.

Parzival looked at the airlocking system, still heavily damaged by the worms earlier. He had no control over the doors on the ship, and could not secure or even close them. Trying to think of a way to distract them ironically caused him to be distracted, and he took a full frontal hit by a flock of undead vultures. The space-grade glass cracked under the repeated blows of them ramming into it. Hairline fractures spider-webbed over the whole pane blocking his vision. Cussing lightly, this meant he couldn't manually fly Serenity anymore so he switched it back to auto pilot and turned around to deal with the threats on his ship.

Just in time to feel cold hands grab his throat and a pair of fangs sink into his shoulder. The zombie growled as it bit Parzival cleaving him for a fifth of his health, and even with his level 99 stats he barely pushed it off before he was able to quick slot a laser pistol to headshot it. It's head exploded with a single shot, the body limply falling to the ground, foot twitching. He thanked Anorak that his high-tier pistol was enough to one shot it.

Scanning the room, he screamed before jumping out of the way as a rhino suddenly charged through a bunch of chairs and desks to ram into the pilot console that he was just standing at. Quickly getting to his knees in a crouching position, he leveled the pistol and fired with near perfect accuracy at the head scoring multiple hits.

The rhino however seemed unphased, with each shot leaving small burn marks from each round. It turned to charge Parzival again who prepared to dodge. Then, a chorus of machine gun fire ripped into the side of the rhino, leaving it to fall over lifeless in a matter of seconds.

Parzival looked to the right to see a man he didn't recognize standing in the doorway, a smoking gun in his hands. He stepped closer scanning the room before his gaze fell on Parzival. He wore a dark green WWII round helmet, along with matching army fatigues. Grenades and Magazines fit in pouches on the military vest that was strapped tightly on his chest.

"Parzival?" A gruff voice asked, stepping out of the shadow and into the light. A middle-aged Caucasian face greeted him, strong features, small nose, and a military crew cut. He reminded him of a leaner Anton.

"Yeah, that's me. Thanks for saving my hide." Parzival said, walking over and extending his hand.

"OH MY GOD!" The man suddenly exploded, his voice raising three pitches and his face stretching in bewilderment and excitement.

"I can't believe I just saved THE Parzival! Can I just say it's such an honor to meet you? I've been waiting for this day for so long. I've dreamt about meeting you, but of course not under this-"

"Uhh, dude?" Parzival interjected, the rambling man suddenly stopping and looking at him. "Let's save the 'hi's and hellos for later,' any of them left on the ship?" The player shook his head, his eyes shifting to a serious tone as he shifted the MG42 in his hands.

"By the way, this is such a cool ship. I personally am a big fan of WWII things but the design of this ship is quite nice. I noticed that you did not have any weapon mounts on the outside of the ship when I was observing it, and tactically I have to say that-"

"Matt. You're _muching_ again. Get him back to the ship!" A female voice yelled over a radio strapped to his shoulder.

"Copy that. Roger wilco over." He said, changing from an upbeat tune to a rough and monotone voice quickly. "We've docked on the stern of your ship, let's head out if you're ready."

Parzival nodded, following him as they left the command room and quickly went to the back of the ship. Out of curiosity, he selected Matt with a specific gesture he inputted, to reveal a 99th level gunslinger named "ilovetanks."

As he moved through his ship, there were multiple dents, exposed hull components, and blaring alarms indicating different problems with the ship. The Serenity definitely took a beating, and wasn't going to make it. He felt sad leaving this ship, as he had fond memories of it. But he couldn't think about that now. There was a war raging on just a few feet from him.

They made it to where Tanks had said he had docked. What he saw made him heavily reconsider the way he what Matt meant when he said "docked."

The Serenity was inside Tanks' ship, crashing into somewhere Parzival didn't know but was effectively now a part of it's hull. There was a large hole cut into the side where he assumed Matt had cut through to get into the Serenity. Parzival couldn't even recall when and how the Serenity had made its way into Tanks' ship, but he shrugged it off.

There stood two women, both dressed drastically different. One was wearing a winter jacket with fur on the hood, and a beanie with black tinted snow goggles on her forehead. Freckles dotted her face like a splash from a paintbrush, and brown hair poked from under the beanie. The other woman had long bluish black hair that spiked down to her shoulders, a tight brown leather jacket with sleeves rolled back to reveal a traditional samurai tattoo on her left arm. Both were petite but muscular, and sported a Thompson sub machine gun each. They were scanning the room when Parzival and Tanks arrived.

"There you are!" The samurai tattoo girl said. "Prat needs you back on deck. Hurry up, it's getting really bad up there!" Tanks nodded holstering the LMG in his inventory and running past the two who quickly followed.

"Acknowledged Charlie Squad Leader Lelm!" He piped as he passed her. He turned to the woman in the winter jacket and gave her a small peck on the cheek, winking at her.

"Missed you Solveig. Follow me ok?" She nodded, grunted in agreement. Parzival shook off the odd moment of affection that he witnessed. Now was no time for questions or hesitation.

As Parzival tailed them, he noticed cramped corridors with a steel aesthetic. Pipes ran zigzagging in every direction on the ceiling, and there was a higher amount of consoles and utility boxes that ran alongside the walls. They turned a corner and started going up cramped metal stairs that had two bulkhead doors reminiscent of something he couldn't place his finger on. What sort of ship was this? It looked awfully familiar.

After a few turns, Tanks opened a bulkhead door and suddenly a deafening ripple of gunfire hit Parzival so hard that it made him wince and clutch his head. That had to be a heavy ordnance turret. Continuing forward, the sight that greeted him made him drop his jaw.

"We're on a boat!?" He exclaimed, walking into the bridge. There were several consoles where people dressed in dark blue military fatigues and all with the same face manned their stations. At the helm was a bulky figure with their back turned to Parzival, Tanks, Lelm, and Solveig. Parzival recognized the command room immediately as he had a thorough knowledge of most vehicles in the Oasis.

"I need to get onto the deck Matt! Get back on the wheel da!?" A deep Russian accented voice bellowed, suppressed slightly by the helmet he was wearing. Tanks took the wheel, the man turned around to reveal a player with a black metal helmet that covered his whole head with 3 white vertical stripes that ran down and over a tiny glass slit for his eyes. He wore a heavily padded military vest and a black track jacket that had the same 3 white stripes running across the sleeves. A metal plate on his vest had the words: "Killa" on it.

"I'll take the wheel Prat, get on the lower decks. I want you to take what's left of Charlie squad and do a perimeter sweep. CV's pinging me that lower decks 55 and 67 already has breaches." Tanks said, the man nodded without hesitation but raised a hand.

"The deck's crawling with the zombies, what you do?" Prat asked.

"Don't worry about them, I've spread Delta and Echo to cover all main entries onto the lower decks, we've lost the fight outside. Stay focused." Prat nodded, brushing past Parzival without a single word.

"Lelm, I need you to tunnel on keeping what soldiers we have alive, take Bravo as an escort, I'll be your eyes. There's a fight going on in Decks 15 to 18, and 22. We've got engineers over there so there's bound to be dead men, do what you can."

"Yes sir." She said, before turning briskly and leaving.

"Rest of you, focus on keeping the larger ships away with what turrets we have left. I want status operators to keep me updated on our situation regardless of significance of the info. Let's get it done!" Tanks barked, slamming his hand onto the wheel and maneuvering the ship.

Parzival blinked at the efficiency and accuracy of the man ordering his subordinates and taking control of the situation. He was incredibly impressed at how Tanks leadership skill and combat strategy that he displayed. A million lights and signals were on the bridge, but he absorbed the information and acted quickly without delay.

Cannon fire erupted again which brought Parzival's eyes out onto the deck. He felt his stomach drop at the sight he saw.

Indeed he was on an amphibious vessel that was outfitted with space capabilities. In fact, if he didn't know any better, this was the destroyer ship he saw earlier that had passed him and went into the initial conflict. There were huge turrets with 50 feet long barrels on the deck, with a few anti-air turrets. Unfortunately, all of those anti-air turrets were mangled and empty, and of the three main turrets he saw, only one was still firing directly forward. The deck was caked in zombie mush, broken limbs, heads, and zombie flesh was strewn all over. Additionally, he could see close to if not more than a hundred zombies roaming the deck, with a few periodically trying to rip through the hull to no avail. A huge one with bulking muscles larger than its head was peeling back layers of metal from huge claw marks that ran along the ship from one side to another.

Parzival shifted his attention back onto the bridge. Aesthetically, the bridge was quite different then the normal Oasis ships and even the official and some of the unofficial skins that frequented them. He looked around as Tanks stood at the helm, piloting the ship while issuing commands to the soldiers that were all on the bridge.

"Hey Matt." Parzival said, catching his attention. "How far are we from the planet?"

Tanks raised a single finger, pointing to a display above their heads while typing something on a console with his other and also issuing orders vocally to the crew in the cabin. Parzival could multitask, most gamers could, but this was on a whole new level he's never seen.

Looking up, Parzival saw on one of the many screens a distance tracker that was marked on the planet. 4.8 OSD's, currently travelling at .2 OSD's a minute. Parzival looked back to the horizon. Or rather, he looked at the massive congregation of zombie ships that were in pursuit of the destroyer, attempting to ram and board it. Everywhere he looked across the bridge viewing port were zombie ships spawning by the dozens in front and next to him. They also were not spawning with the normal delay of materializing from bottom to top. They immediately popped into existence whirling forward, or with weapons already firing as soon as they generated.

The hull of the destroyer was quite impervious, which made Parzival to believe that whoever Tanks was, he lived a lavish life. But he also picked up on the nuances of tactical prowess that Tanks conveyed through the flow of how he commanded his ship. It was interesting to watch how all the crew listened to him without questioning him, following his explicit orders on first command. He watched as Tanks maneuvered the ship in the most optimal way possible, all the while focusing fire from whatever guns were operational in a forward direction to carve a path. He couldn't see it, but there were probably additional gun banks on each side of the frigate that kept most other zombie ships at bay.

Below on the lower decks, skirmishes between his crew and the zombies were in full force based off of reports coming in. Notices of additional breaches were happening by the minute, which meant it was only a matter of time before they were either overrun, or the ship fell apart.

"What's the plan here?" Parzival asked before a giant zombie ship managed to ram the side of the destroyer, sending them all flying to one side of the cabin. Parzival rolled and quickly got back up on his feet, looking over to see an unfazed Tanks pointing towards something on the bow of the ship. Parzival spotted a purple ship with orange flames and yellow hearts decaled on the side of it had smashed through the hull of the ship. Parzival shook his head in disbelief at someone making it this far, but it definitely was a player ship. Quickly looking at the minimap console next to Matt, whoever landed on the ship was making their way through overrun corridors all the way to the bridge. They gunned down a corridor full of zombies just by themselves!

Tanks snapped his fingers at one of the bridge crew to get a visual on the corridor they were passing through and Parzival felt his heart leap. There, cutting and blasting her way through zombies was his girlfriend and the love his life Samantha Cook.

* * *

Samantha smiled as she hurriedly autographed someone's Oasis headset. Looking over the shoulder of an ecstatic fan, she noticed an even larger crowd forming as people wandering the streets starting pooling in. Mentally cursing, she waved a hand and then placed them together in a thankful manner.

"Thank you so much for your appreciation and support, but I really have to get going! Please respect my time!" She bowed and turned gracefully, her bodyguards stepping in to stop the aggressive fans from trying to continue to harass her. She made her way into the internet cafe, most of the users were gawking at her, including the staff. Turning to the girl behind the desk, who was a plump blonde dressed in what appeared to be a cross of steampunk and sailor moon.

"How much for the best Oasis bay you've got?" She asked, flicking her hair out of the way to reveal the port-wine stain on her face in full. She felt confident. Powerful even with her boyfriend's encouragement that helped build her self-esteem enough to own her birthmark, rather than letting it own her.

"Pardon?" Her thick countryside french accent revealed. Sam mentally winced, hoping she spoke enough English to understand.

"Oasis." She gestured by making the motion of putting the headset on her head. The woman smiled.

"Ah! réalité virtuelle! Oui oui!" She pointed at a menu of selections with varying prices. Sam couldn't really make out what they said, but she pointed at the most expensive one.

"Huit hueres?" Sam asked, butchering the pronunciation. The receptionist smiled, nodding vigorously.

"Oui mademoiselle! Par ici s'il-vous-plaît." She motioned for Sam to follow her. Sam hesitated, reaching into her purse and pulling out a transparent card with her name on it and two chips that had a few electronic stems running through the card like veins. It was a standard GSS business credit card.

"Uhh, pay? Coûte?" She asked, trying to motion that she would pay. The woman gasped, dramatically holding her hands to her mouth and shaking her head vigorously. Sam smiled, insisting by nodding and extending it out to the receptionist. The woman winked, took the card, and placed it back on Sam's hand, patting it away. Sam shrugged, following the woman.

She was led to a rather lackluster Oasis bay, but still clean and simple. She knew that the best this internet cafe had to offer wasn't much but she couldn't blame the town because of the economic situation.

The woman opened a wall closet to reveal Oasis suits that were dark blue with red stripes down the sleeves and legs. Finding her size and putting it on, she was surprised to feel it get tighter after she turned the suit on, and heard the humming of a temperature regulator. Flaps on the shoulders and knees opened, revealing harness mounts. The woman began activating the Oasis rig in the center of the room, an older unit that while still allowed for full range and motion, did not have flying or G-force configurations.

Sam raised an eyebrow at the rig and the suit, impressed with the only slightly outdated gear despite the conditions the store operated in. Standing in the center of the unit, the woman hooked the harness to the Oasis platform, which also included a disk that mounted to Sam's waist. She stepped back and motioned for Sam to test it out.

Smiling, she ran in each direction. An omnidirectional treadmill under her whirred to life to keep her in the center. Running again and then performing a jump kick, she felt the harness tense as it pulled her back in the center after keeping her in the air for the adequate amount of time she would have stayed in the air in a normal gravity zone. Satisfied, she also performed a few martial arts combinations, ranging from Japanese Boxing to Brazillian Jujitsu. The suit responded well, and the rig didn't impede her actions at all. She flashed a thumbs up to the receptionist who nodded, clapping her hands together before leaving and locking the room.

"Let's do this." Sam said to herself, logging into the Oasis. A smirk crept on her face as the familiar light speed effect initiated in her visor. Feeling stretched and ready, she started hopping on her feet as if preparing herself to fight.

She felt herself coming into existence in a small port off a vacation themed planet in Sector 1. The waves gently caressed the 14th century harbor. NPC's bustled about, making the town feel alive and full of energy. An old man played the violin while an elderly couple danced, merrily laughing. A parrot squawked on a pirate's shoulder as he mumbled about not having any grog to drink for the last few days.

Waving her hand to open the main menu, she accessed the teleportation feature and highlighted sector 23 and a few options appeared. She selected planet Zullidan and accepted the costs. She lifted her hand and watched it slowly turn into white square pixels that evaporated starting from her fingers and toes while moving inwards. In a moment, she was gone.

When she appeared on Zullidan the central hub was booming with players. Players were teleporting in from all over the Oasis, and the two main pedestrian portals were continuously spitting out players like they were coming out of an assembly line. The sudden boom in volume alone had her muting her audio immediately. Her avatar was pushed around as players brushed by her. Remembering that she was a Warrior Mage, she hummed a spell and instantly felt relief as she levitated above the crowd. Her floating spell was nothing to call home about, but it allowed her to at least survey the Central Hub.

"Holy shit." She said as soon as saw her surroundings in full.

Thousands of player characters swarmed around the tiny plaza below her. Because Zullidan was a low level mining planet, this area was created to look a bit run down and deserted. She normally would be seeing a vast cracked tundra with large barren hills. This hub was normally nothing more than two derelict buildings built with scrap that allowed players to dock their ships, refine their materials, and store their goods. However, with the influx of players, she could barely see anything other than the throng of ships and players bustling about.

Shops were already set up and people were already in the process of licensing areas for services and lodging. Signs and advertisements were floating from drones and popped up in mid air before evaporating. Ships of varying sizes flew in every direction, unloading and loading materials. Art3mis dodged left as a pack of ships shaped like angler fish flew in a flurry, sending her toppling out of balance. It was crazy how fast this hub turned into a bustling mini-metropolis in literally hours. Shaking her head and mentally slapping herself she focused on the task at hand. She needed to get to Erywing gate.

Looking up, she gasped at what she saw. There were ships scurrying in and out of orbit, one of which was a dreadnought that was burning and billowing smoke from several decks. The massive ship flew into orbit at a velocity much too fast for adequate braking. Ships and people scurried out of the way as it fell out of the sky, escape pods firing in every direction. The dreadnought touched down a hundred or so miles away, but the shockwave from the explosion still blew Art3mis several feet back.

Her attention back to the sky, there were many damaged ships flying down to Zullidan for repairs, while other ships geared up to loot and to fight flew towards the distant battle. Far away flashes of explosions and tracer rounds flying in all directions caught her attention. She smiled, feeling the adrenaline and nervous energy begin to fill her.

With a wave of her hand, she summoned a red jet ski vehicle, with compact space thrusters on the back, and a few light machine gun mounts attached to each side. She hopped on, flipping a few switches before turning a key and the vehicle purred coming to life. The lights came on and the exhaust fired a few spurts of smoke.

"Apollo. Switch to space configuration." The jet ski started morphing, growing longer but leaner and a glass dome popped over her. "Hold on babe." She whispered before revving the vehicle which shot it forward. She leaned back, pulling it up and it fired into the sky.

She weaved between ships coming and going, her Sylithin bike much faster than a lot of the ships around her. Rocketing forward to the head of the pack, she broke through the atmosphere and she gaped at what she saw. On the ground, through the thick atmosphere of Zullidan, it looked like a small battle was raging on. However now that her visibility was no longer blocked what she saw was no battle. It was a nightmare.

Ships were torn apart, random materials from other vehicles floating amidst millions of wreckage and spent ammunition. There was gold and epic level loot floating freely. The looters had all fled, because at this point the battle had already reached the warp gate which flashed a brilliant red preventing players from warping to it.

Erywing gate's defenses continuously fired mage spells and bullets into the growing mass of zombie ships that gained inch after inch towards the gate. Players formed a defensive perimeter next to the gate, dozens of ships were lined up firing into the zombie mass as well. Art3mis looked on as a rainbow stream of spell, missile, bullet, and energy bombarded the zombies. She jumped in horror as a long arm shot out in a blink of an eye, grabbing a small vessel before pulling it into the mass. The horde grew, and grew outwards, and the gunfire had to slowly disperse up and down.

"They're going to be overrun." Art3mis breathed. Horrified.

"It's Art3mis!" She saw in the vicinity chat. She had all other chat categories blocked at the moment. A few news ships well away from the battle flew around her, peppering her with questions. She quickly passed them, flying closer to the battle. She smirked when she noticed the news ships pull back afraid of losing their ships. Probably company property that would have killed them for it.

She joined the gun parade, firing into the crowd. She looked on as a zombie ship was blown apart, it's skin-matted hull remains forming a shield for the other ships moving forward. She tried to fire as precisely as possible, hitting only zombie ships that were poking through and not just the wall of debris that slowly flew towards them, but there was just so many of them. Where were they coming from?

"This isn't working." She realized after a minute of pointlessly killing zombies, only for them to be replaced. She looked around, and noticed in a tiny pocket of space within the zombie armada, there was a purple flash of a ship's wing before it disappeared. Was someone in there?

"Hey, who is flying in there?" She asked in the vicinity chat. The chat was being flooded with people spamming orders, insults, jokes, amongst other things. Someone noticed her username and answered her question.

"Nobody is in there. That's impossible."

Then others.

"LOL wut? like a million ships died how would someone be in there?"

"Everyone ded in there!11!1!1!"

"Freakin' noooobssss"

"Ahahahahhh maybe parzival is in there?"

"Lol yeah that and god"

"Parzival IS god!"

' _Wade? Are you in there?'_ She asked herself, the tiny gap closing as ships closed in. She couldn't second guess herself. If he was in there, he needed her help now. But she couldn't penetrate this dense army without something to help her. Looking around, she spotted an assault frigate with a gigantic plasma ray port used for slicing carriers in half. She flew over to the command bridge, hovering just outside the glass where she could see several people inside all scurrying about. The captain, a man dressed like an old man with anime like features stood at the helm. She quickly drew a box around him and his general stats showed up in her HUD. His name was "Professor_0ak" a 99th level tamer.

"Professor Oak! Could you create an opening for me?" She asked vocally. She had already had speech to text enabled and waved to get his attention. He looked over, his eyes growing even larger than they already were, his furrowed brows raised in surprise.

"Art3mis? Why for you, of course! But I only have one shot left after the initial battle, so use this well!" He said on the intercom. She nodded, giving him a thumbs up while maneuvering behind his ship.

She heard the ship begin to hum, as pockets of light began to form around the barrel of the gun before being absorbed into a giant ball of light. The hum turned into a loud current that cackled as it charged to full capacity. Then, out of nowhere a zombie ship lobbed an armadillo looking zombie that rolled through the sky so fast she barely caught it. It flew through the base of the plasma gun, ripping it entirely free from the ship. The gun exploded, Art3mis quickly reversed Apollo backwards as the ship that it was attached to flew in the opposite direction from the feedback. The assault frigate blew into pieces, the crew and ship disappearing into gold and loot.

"Damnit!" She cussed, turning to shoot at the Armadillo that unrolled and tried to claw its way into a transport vessel that wasn't paying attention.

"I'll cut you a way." Someone said. She looked over her shoulder and her eyes bulged with happiness.

"What are you doing here!?" She cried in disbelief.

There, samurai avatar sitting in the pilot's seat of an RX-78-2 giant mech called a "Gundam" was one of her closest friends, Shoto.

"Parzival-san called me, and I cannot ignore his request. Or, it would dishonor not only me, but Daito." She grinned, almost tearing up at the excitement and joy she felt at seeing Shoto after so long. He changed his avatar, opting to grow his hair out, and tied it up in a bun behind his head. His avatar had facial hair, and bore an intense look in his eyes she did not recall was there. He was definitely different. Somehow becoming even more badass than he was before.

"The others say he led the charge towards the planet. Those who followed got separated from the main battle. Now, many stand between." He raised a beam saber towards the encroaching wall of undead. "I shall make sure you get to him, Samantha-san. I'm afraid that he will not make it for much longer."

She raised an eyebrow at him, despite the impressive gigantic mecha that he was in she did not think he was enough to split the wall in two.

"You're good at the game Shoto, but I don't think you're enough." She said, looking onto the zombie horde. He smiled at her before closing the chest piece around himself, the Gundam's eyes lighting up a bright yellow. There was a heart thumping whistle sound that came from his Gundam, the one that made you know the pilot was ready to do something incredible.

"You're right, Samantha-san. It's a good thing I am not." He raised his beam saber above his head, and then in a fluid motion whipped it into a circle before slicing downward to rest by his side. An enormous dark blue cruiser flew up behind Shoto, and with fury it unleashed a torrent of high-tier ordnance that ripped a crater into the zombie ships. Yet again Art3mis found herself shocked in surprise at the events. There was no mistaking it, that battle ship was a replica of the infamous Space Battleship Yamato.

"Follow behind me, my army will lead the assault." Shoto said, holding up a fist with his free hand.

"Army?" Art3mis asked, looking at the cruiser. He nodded, and from behind him, hundreds of other Gundams de-cloaked. Her breath hitched at the sight of all the Gundams, several different models from MSZ Zeta Gundams, to ASW-G-08 Barbatos Gundams. They were all painted the respective color schemes that of the original Gundams, save for a banner mounted on their back. It was a plain white banner with a black kanji in the middle of it. A quick image search resulted in one entry. " **Justice**."

"Susumu!" Shoto called out, the rest of the Gundams unsheathed their weapons and charged forward, the Battleship surging ahead with them as all their weapons fired at the zombie horde. Shoto held the beam saber in an offensive position with the shield upfront, his thrusters propelling him toward the fray.

"It's Shoto!"

"OMG he's got an army!"

"He's charging into it wtf?"

"LOL WUT"

"Wtffffffg"

"!?11?!11/1?1?111!"

"Follow him!"

"Let's go!"

"YESSSSS"

The chat burst into life as players broke from the defensive formation and began a second charge into the zombie mass. A spine-tingling chill flowed through Samantha, one that she had not felt for a whole year. There was something about being in the Oasis that real life could never emulate, or if it could it would be too dangerous. The sense of camaraderie that was on the battlefield. It excited her to no end, and she knew now that despite all the good life had to offer, it could not exhilarate her like this did.

Shoto and the Gundams sliced and blasted away zombie ships as the Battleship carved the main path through the zombie hordes. Players flew in behind them, covering for zombie ships and creatures that were unaccounted for. Looking forward, she was amazed at how Shoto commanded his legion, along with how he skillfully executed zombie ships one after another. He flew into a cluster of dozens of ships, slicing them all while dodging their attacks with an effortless finesse and grace that belonged to one who practiced for many years.

She pitched her ship upwards as she flew over a Gundam that had been obliterated and self-destructed killing several zombie leeches that covered it, and blasted through a strange zombie ship that resembled a nose with tendrils coming out of the nostrils.

She opened up her inventory and selected one of the few artifacts she owned. One of which was a black mechanical drone picture. Taking it out of her inventory, it appeared in her hand and she rotated it. There was a tiny screen which turned on, and a few prompts asking her how far she wanted. She selected the maximum amount allowed and pressed enter. The drone vanished, the amount of uses on it exhausted.

In place of it, a small black cloud formed, within it, she saw lots of tiny different spheres floating around, with a green one flying nestled behind a hundred white ones. She tapped on a gray sphere, the one that dominated the cloud and identified it as "enemy". The black cloud suddenly flashed with red. She stretched the cloud out and magnified the cloud to see the green sphere behind a bunch of white and gray spheres with red ones disappearing and reappearing all around them. She smiled, acknowledging she was making progress behind Shoto's Justice legion and the brave players that pushed through.

"Mark Parzival blue." She said and saw that further down the cloud, surrounded by even more red spheres was a lone blue sphere next to a few white ones flying towards the planet. ' _Wait, so the purple ship wasn't Parzival? Who was that then?_ '

Something hit her ship which whipped her in a spin off track. Her avatar smashed it's head on the side of the glass shield cracking it and she lost a few hundred hit points, a small number for her health which was in the thousands. Returning her attention back to the battle, she saw devastation.

Shoto's army was being devoured one by one at a fast rate, his Battleship was already crawling with zombies on it. Multiple large breaches could be seen, and the concentrated fire it had once delivered was waning considerably. Looking back at the cloud in her hands, she had made considerable ground, but it wasn't enough. Wade was still a few minutes ahead of them. She was sure whoever he was with wouldn't be able to hold out for long.

"Samantha-san! My crew won't last much longer. You must move onwards! I will forge you a path!" She gunned down a zombie that was holding onto a Gundam's leg, and spun to deflect a zombie ship trying to ram her.

"There's too many Shoto, we don't have enough firepower!" She called to him, an alarm blaring on her Apollo that she was running low on fuel. She had burned too much doing evasive maneuvers and trying to get to Parzival. She quickly refilled it with what fuel her avatar had left on her, giving her just enough to be barely 25%. Ahead, Shoto's Gundam was withered down, a few exposed wires, and some of the armor plating had been scratched or ripped off.

"We can do it. But you have to get directly behind me." He said to her, blasting a zombie ship with a beam rifle as he shield slammed a zombie in the throat, beheading it. She pushed herself to get to his ship, the battleship firing blue flares in every direction lit the space.

"Are you ready?" Shoto asked.

"Yes Shoto." She replied, positioning herself behind him while they fought zombies back to back. She had no idea what she was ready for, but the hair on her arms felt electrified.

"Oh and Art3mis?" He said, his tone shifting. She cocked her head, looking at the back of his Gundam, which turned to look at her. The helmet had a claw mark go through half of the face at a diagonal angle, one eye was destroyed, the other still glowing yellow.

"My name is not Shoto anymore." He turned to face the zombie hordes, the shield popping off his arm with a hiss. He let go of the beam rifle, it drifted away from his open palm slowly. His Gundam raised both of its hands and punched a zombie square in the gut before uppercutting it and sending it flipping away.

"In honor of Daito I have changed my name. You may now call me… Daisho." Daisho said, and in an instant, two large samurai swords appeared in both of the Gundam's hands. She recognized one of them to be an enlarged Masamune katana. The other, a shorter sword she could not recognize but she assumed it too was a legendary weapon. The Masamune katana was a ridiculously powerful artifact that had incredible stats.

Both blades in hand, the thrusters on his back exploded at full velocity. Daisho's Gundam spun and moved so fast it began to look like a blur. A whirlwind. Daisho sliced through the zombies with ease, even cutting through a thick shielded Hammerhead zombie ship like a bulldozer through a house of glass.

She could barely think of even doing anything other than following the tsunami of death in front of her. Behind her, his Battleship detonated, destroying huge swathes of zombies. Many players had already retreated or were killed, most if not all of Shoto's Justice Legion had been decimated.

Anything that came closer to him was instantly eviscerated in pieces. The cloud map below her had her flying at remarkable speeds towards Parzival, gaining ground. She noticed that there was a gray sphere behind the green one that indicated her position.

Turning to look behind her, she spotted a purple ship right behind her. It looked like a Sports Car that had plane wings where the doors would normally be, the main cabin sleek and slanted. The vehicle was tiny, but it was relatively unscathed. The wings had mini-thrusters and wing flaps alternating along the whole wing. A Pink panda was emblazoned on the hood of the car, with orange flame marks and yellow heart decals all over. She could see a young girl inside giving her a wink and quick thumbs up. It was the vehicle she saw earlier!

"Who is that?" She asked herself, turning around to focus on maneuvering with Daisho. "Sh-.. uh, Daisho. How are you holding up?" She asked, still getting used to his name. She liked his new name, and she assumed he had blended Daito and Shoto together to create it. Daito had been everything to Shoto after all, and somehow she felt happy despite the stressful situation.

"I'm OK." He said, his voice strained. She noticed his movements were beginning to slow, the rapid pace straining his body beyond what he normally exhibited. She began to fire her guns around her, trying to assist him but her weapons were too light for many of the ships at the pace they were going.

Before she could look in her inventory to see if she had anything else, a bloated zombie Daisho had slashed in half was still alive. As it flew past her, it tried to grab her ship and got a handle on the tail end of her engine. Her ship hitched at the extra weight and she immediately tried to shake it off. The zombie however, had other plans. It shoved it's hand into her thruster which caused it to explode, killing the zombie but destroying her engines. ARt3mis felt herself completely lose control of Apollo, and the vehicle began diving vertically.

"Ah! Crap no!" She cried, ejecting herself out just as a frigate sized zombie ship devoured her vehicle. She was knocked aside by the force of something, and her mind got confused as the orientation of her character was not in-sync with how her body was in real life. Something had just slammed into her, and she was plastered against a wall that was moving really fast. ' _The purple ship!?_ ' She thought, realizing it had caught her and kept in pace with Daisho.

She had been caught on the windshield, and her face was squished against it. The girl inside flicked a switch, which made Art3mis fall through the windshield all the way onto the backseat of the car. A teenaged looking guy with spiky orange hair and an open collar purple jacket stared back at her.

"You alright Art3mis?" He asked, his voice deep and gritty.

"Uhhh… yeah." She answered, picking herself off the floor and into a sitting position. "Who are you?"

"The name is Fatebreaker. But you can call me David." He said, holding out a hand. Art3mis went to shook it but he reclined his hand back. He then held out his hand again, except this time palm up.

"Payment." He said, sharply but still somehow in a friendly way. "For saving you." She blinked, dumbfounded for a second, before smiling and dropping 500 gold coins onto his hand in a small pouch. She was grateful for them saving her, and at this point gold didn't really matter too much to her.

"We're trying to catch up to Parzival, but we arrived a bit late." He said. She looked over at the girl driver. Her avatar was a short pink haired girl with large blinking stars in her hair. She wore a shiny latex one piece suit with various panda pins near the left breast. David noticed her curious gaze, and pocketed the gold. "That's Precisa, but she wants you to call her Cherry." Cherry lifted one hand briefly off the wheel for a peace sign before putting it back on the wheel.

Art3mis had seen drivers before. Hell, she had seen pro drivers before. But this was piloting on a level that seemed inhuman. There were at least 15 different collections of inputs for movement that Cherry fluidly used in rapid motion. Art3mis watched as she pitched the joystick up causing the car to tilt down, before furiously flipping two of twenty flaps on a different console, and then rolling a ball track horizontally one direction, and then back again while also pitching upwards.

Daisho was missing more and more zombies as he accelerated, but somehow Cherry was able to literally dodge every single thing that came her way. The vehicle swerved in the most bizarre patterns, creating figure eights that stopped short and had long tangents and sharp corners. Normally, their avatars would be thrown around, but the vehicle must have been equipped with some sort of G-force inhibitors that allowed the occupants inside to sit relaxed in their seats. Art3mis gazed with awe as Cherry's hands were a blur of motion, her feet also accelerating and decelerating the car with exact accuracy.

"How are you doing this?" Art3mis found herself asking. She also noticed arrows that popped up in front of Cherry's vision every once awhile. They were always a varying shade of pink, and would fade away nearly instantly.

"She's one of the best racers in the Oasis for a reason. Being deaf allows her brain to focus more on sensation and eyesight, allowing her to be more precise than your average pro gamer who has all their senses. The arrows in front of her face shows her where the sound is coming from and what kind of sound." David explained in monotone, as if he recited this often.

"Sorry, I'm not well versed in the racer scene." She apologized. David shrugged with a tired expression on his face while he flicked a gold coin around his fingers.

"No big deal. Though I wager your buddy Shoto won't make it for much longer and we…" He trailed off as he leaned over to look at a screen in the middle of the dashboard. "We are about a minute away from Parzival, but he won't make it for another 30 seconds."

Art3mis eyed Daisho as he continued to create a path for them through the hordes of zombies. He was absolutely drenched in zombie goo. One of the pauldrons on his shoulders was ripped clean off. A thruster was billowing smoke, leaving a trail behind him, and the Gundam was covered in claw and bite marks. She hated to admit it, but she thought David might be right.

"So what are we going to do?" She asked. Art3mis watched as in some insane way, Cherry was able to fit signs between the actions she made to weave and tuck the vehicle out of harm's way.

"She said when he goes down, we're going to go forward and try to get to Parzival's ship." She nodded, finding herself gripping the seat when Cherry barrel rolled the car but it didn't matter because of the inhibitors.

"Oh shit!" David cried as Cherry turned the steering wheel and the car spun in a circle, a giant ripped arm with sword in hand flying past them. ' _That means…_ ' Art3mis thought before looking back at Daisho.

Electricity cackled out of his missing left arm, wires flying in circles as he still pressed forward swinging.

"BRACE." A mechanical voice yelled out from the speakers of the cars, an audio command that Cherry had pressed before pulling the car straight up and blasting engines vertically. Art3mis felt herself press against the back of the car, noting that the inhibitors probably couldn't absorb such a sharp maneuver. She looked in the rear-view mirror, frowning. Daisho probably couldn't push any further after he lost that arm and was finally destroyed. Cherry probably evaded because he was going to be overwhelmed by the very next second.

In the same moment, all the zombie ships began to zero in on their vehicle instead, and despite the nearly zero visibility environment with many different projectiles and attempts to ram their ship, Cherry evaded them all.

"Soon." David whispered, intently staring forward. Cherry put the vehicle back on track, but had to do many more evasive maneuvers to compensate for Daisho not being the main distraction and path clearer. She drove circles around the zombie ships, expertly causing them to run into or fire upon each other while she pushed forward. The thrusters on her wings allowed her to make turns at normally inaccessible velocities, while the extra flaps gave her full control of the velocity and pitch of vertical and diagonal movements. This combination gave the car the ability to change it's trajectory to nearly any direction at any given moment. She juked a zombie ship by heading left which caused it to move in the same direction trying to ram her, and at the last second doing a 330 degree turn and whipping around it. The car threaded between two ships firing balls of goo at her, and somehow drove through a closing mouth of a colossal zombie dreadnought.

"There!" David shouted, pointing at a ball of zombie ships all moving in the same direction. Art3mis mentally whooped for joy. Somewhere in there was Parzival pushing forward. They just had to get inside that mess so they could help him.

"Cherry, see if you can make it to the front of the pack." David said, she grunted in acknowledgement, the words he said appearing in a tiny text in front of her face that she read quickly before disappearing.

As they moved closer, Art3mis could barely see inside. There was something big moving forward, still carving a path when Daisho's battle cruiser was unable to. She noticed that the gigantic ball of ships flowed left, and then up, and then downwards again. Parzival, or whoever Parzival was with must also be a good driver to avoid destruction for so long.

Cherry somehow got close to the front of the pack in less than a minute, and David reached down to his jacket and begun unzipping it. The jacket disappeared revealing an ornate metallic grey vest with a few pockets on the front. There was a strange symbol on the back of his vest, she couldn't clearly see it but it looked like a skull with a snake wrapped around it.

"What are you doing?" Art3mis asked from behind him. He turned his head, cocking his head a little in thought.

"Getting you in." He said. Cherry flipped the switch as soon as she made it to the front of the pack, keeping parallel with Wade's progress. David jumped out of his seat right out into space. Cherry flipped the switch back to create the solid glass windshield and jetted off before a zombie ship grabbed them.

"Wait, what's he doing!? He's going to die out there!" Art3mis cried as she climbed onto the passenger seat next to Cherry, craning her neck to get a look outside. She couldn't see David anymore, but she noticed a large hole where a bunch of ships used to be in the swarm. Cherry immediately drove toward it, punching the car as fast as she could.

Cherry gave up dodging out of the way of the zombie's ships, and because of that the car finally took hits. If they were going to make it, she couldn't afford to make any deviations. It rocked back and forth as fists, claws, and heads slammed into it. The chassis of the car began to dent in from the repeated assaults, making the cabin smaller and smaller. Cherry continued to force the ship straight ahead determined and unwavering. She had a smile on her face, and a merciless glint in her eye as if she saw a finish line.

Art3mis hissed to herself, worried that they wouldn't make it through before the ships filled in the gap in their swarm. It grew smaller and smaller. They were almost there! Words flashed all around them warning Cherry that hull integrity was failing and multiple systems were malfunctioning. She didn't care. They were mere seconds from making it.

Just as soon as they got through the hole, a wicked barbed tentacle shot through from the bottom of the vehicle into the driver's side, immediately evaporating Cherry. Art3mis screamed, diving for the controls but the car was already too damaged to respond. It flew forwards out of control, before crashing through something metal and darkness enveloped her.

Art3mis felt herself get flown out of the vehicle, the Oasis rig picking her up and spinning her around. She landed on the floor outside the vehicle, her health bar at about half way. Instinctively, she got up and healed herself with a simple spell that she whispered and stood up.

Groaning and looking around, light surrounded her. Industrial lights. She was inside a ship! A normal ship! The alarm was blaring incessantly, and she could hear distant yells and gunfire among the wails of zombies. Looking around to get her bearings, she assumed she was in some sort of barracks where people rested based off of the racks of cramped bunk beds and a few couches and tables. Exiting the room and into the hallway, she noticed a map on the wall and thanked Halliday that this ship had a map. It was a standard destroyer ship from the looks of it, and she located the Command Bridge. Guessing that's where Parzival was, she marked it on a minimap that she created of the destroyer. Unholstering two blaster pistols, she made her way there through the decks.

It was time to group up for the final push.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed what I wrote! I can't believe it took me about 4 months to write. This was however, the longest chapter I've ever written, clocking in about 16k words. :O Let me know with a review or PM what you thought about it, whether it was something you liked or not. 3


	5. Chapter 4: Pinky Promise

Chapter Four: Pinky Promise

* * *

Art3mis recast Hastaga on herself and efficiently cut down the zombies in the hallway. Her mana was running low but she did have a few mana potions left. Her Elvish blade, _Ar'ineth,_ was forged from legendary materials from a once a month raid. It allowed her to make short work of the zombinoids onboard the ship.

The ones she had cut down earlier from her entry point had already multiplied and were chasing after her. She looked back in annoyance, slightly unnerved by how aggressive they tried to get to her. Dozens of zombies clambered over each other, pushing and shoving their way to Art3mis.

' _Whoever coded their behavior did a really good job. Gross as hell_.' She thought as she watched a zombie get trampled by its brethren. She moved forward with urgency, already figuring out the zombie mechanics that she was up against.

Halfway through the ship, she heard gunfire from a corridor up ahead. Rounding the corner, she ducked as a bladed arm flew past aiming to cleave her. She dove as another arm slammed down on the ground where she had once stood, rolling to evade two more hands that tried to grasp her. Returning to a fighting stance, a horrific amalgamation of a humanoid figure with two arms coming out of its stomach stared at her with an open jaw too wide to fit on a normal face. It's original arms had huge bone-like spikes jutting from its elbows. It rushed her with incredible agility screaming in a terrifying guttural howl as it did so.

Parrying an elbow spike with her sword, she un-holstered a blaster pistol that was on her hip and shot it in the knee cap. It growled with fury, toppling to it's other leg to catch itself. She used that moment to decapitate it with a swift spin. Oddly, it still swung at her despite it's missing head. With deft motions she dismembered it's remaining arms and legs in a series of Iaijutsu counter-attack swipes. She continued onwards after felling the beast, barely breaking a sweat by utilizing her sword and pistol together in a unique fighting style she developed over the years of killing Sixers during the hunt.

She caught a zombie's bite with her sword, headbutting it knocking it backwards, and then raised her blaster on par with its head and fired three times. Turning away from the even more dead undead, she swiveled on her toe as a skittering four legged spider zombie leapt at her. During her spin that allowed her to barely dodge the arachnid, she gave the creature a few quick slashes that illicited a beastial screech of pain. It swiped at her with it's gigantic mandibles, but she ducked under it casting with a short incantation a high level mine spell. She delivered a quick leg slash to keep it confused before rolling away to dodge a bite. Mine priming to explode, Art3mis looked to a spot on the ground a few meters away and kept her eyes focused on a panel on the floor. She whispered a spell and teleported there within a brief second all the while the mine went off behind her. The detonation covered the area with even more digital goo. Art3mis grimaced as she flicked a flaming chunk of spider leg out of her hair.

Finally making it to the source of the fight she heard, she conjured a quick wall spell to seal off the corridor behind her draining her mana. It wouldn't hold the zombies for long, but it did the trick for now. Downing a mana pot, she moved onwards. Ahead, a bulkhead door was torn open, it barely still hung on its hinges. Inside, was a boiler room of sorts. Gigantic copper looking pipes criss crossed across smaller pipes in every part of the room. Tiny little gages that showed different amounts of pressure and dozens of valves dotted every surface alongside banks of large machinery.

Zombies cut into bits and riddled with bullet holes lay all around the room, the signs of battle were evident across the remnants of digital blood.

"Okay, let's do a quick heal here." A soft feminine voice said. Peering over to the end of the boiler room, Art3mis saw a woman clad in leather with bluish black hair casting healing spells on some other players all dressed alike. She had seen this skin of an avatar before, in an old 2009 game called "Wet." She drew a box around them for her HUD to pull up their info. Lelm, a level 99 healer. The three men fitted with simple dark blue US navy fatigues were all to her surprise not players, but actually NPCs. They were wounded, and she watched as Lelm brought them back up to full. The NPCs were all armed with Thompson submachine guns, except for Lelm who had a sword and two futuristic looking revolvers. Nearly the same kit as herself.

"Uhh, hey." Art3mis called out, making herself known. She did so from behind a pipe, wary they would react in a hostile manner. She was right.

All immediately turned to her with weapons raised.

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold on. I'm here to help." She quickly said, raising both hands up around a large pipe shaft she took cover behind.

"A player?" Lelm asked more to herself, confused. "How did you get here?" She lowered her revolvers, looking around to the other doors. "Seal and repair." She ordered. The NPCs holstered their weapons, welders then popped into their hands before they resealed the room from further intruders.

Art3mis stepped forward, giving a smile and a short wave.

"I got here with the help of some other players who didn't make it. Where's Parzival?" Art3mis asked noting that on her minimap it showed that the ship was absolutely gigantic. It was easily double the size of what standard frigates were normally. With dread, she also observed that her minimap showed an overwhelming amount of enemy detection pings both inside and outside the ship. Funny how she finally noticed the predicament she was in when she had time to breathe.

"He's on the bridge with Matt. I could direct you there… uh..." Lelm trailed off intentionally which Art3mis picked up immediately.

"Oh! I'm Art3mis." She said, slightly annoyed Lelm didn't just get her player info. Lelm's eyes bulged, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Well I'll be." Lelm said with an impressive tone as she nonchalantly raised her revolver at a dead zombie, only to shoot it and the additional one that spawned square in the head before returning her attention to Art3mis. "Count my stars, and pluck my feathers. It's _the_ Art3mis. One of the High-Five. Pleasure to meet you. I'm Lelm, healer, and a medical officer of Matt's 1337th Battalion." She smiled, saluting Art3mis. Art3mis saluted back.

"Alright, let's move. They'll keep coming. We're running out of time." Art3mis said, and looked over her shoulder, before shooting a few respawning zombies in the room. "I made a wall down that corridor over there, but it won't last long."

"Sorry Art3mis. No can do." Lelm said sternly, shrugging. "Orders are to hold in this room as long as I can, it's important for the function of the ship. You go on ahead though." Lelm opened up a minimap of the ship similar to Art3mis' and drew a path with her finger. It highlighted bright blue on the two-dimensional blueprint. She then with two fingers flicked it towards Art3mis who saw the path transfer to her own minimap. Art3mis gave Lelm a half smile and raised eyebrow. Lelm chuckled at her doubtful expression.

"It's okaaaay. I'm not exactly a scrub." She winked at Art3mis, blasting two more zombies dead in the head. Art3mis watched as she reloaded the revolver swiftly. Nodding, she continued on the path that lay before her, leaving gunfire behind as she progressed towards the Bridge.

The rest of the short journey was eventless other than a few shakes and orientation adjustments due to the ship turning. Art3mis was luckily accustomed to shifting her center of gravity when the wall or the ceiling became the floor.

Whoever Matt was, his crew was still holding onto the ship. Barely, but still. ' _Every other ship got fragged in a beat. What makes this ship different?'_ Art3mis wondered. She did pass a corridor where a few NPCs laid heavy suppressive fire down a corridor. These NPCs were dressed in infantry army fatigues, but were themed in WWII just like the ones with Lelm. They were a machine gunner squad. Two NPCs laid heavy fire using Bren LMGs while two support NPCs fed the guns from large ammo boxes. The heavy caliber rounds wouldn't do much against heavily armored opponents, but for the organic zombies that were on the other end of the hallway it did just fine for blending them into mush. ' _Huh_.' Art3mis thought to herself, interested in the amount of NPCs that she guessed were probably on the ship.

Though it had only been a year, NPCs were far and few outside of the many planets and zones when she frequented the Oasis. You rarely saw people transfer NPCs outside of the sectors that were designed to be in. They were relatively easy to make if you had the technical knowledge and artistic skill, but they weren't very strong. NPCs couldn't share EXP with players, so you had to code them to fight for themselves, which was difficult. You either had to be a genius, a rich person, or someone who had a lot of time on their hands. Probably all three.

That being said, to have NPCs able to crisply follow orders and fight high levels mobs with minimal instruction was a feat she had not seen in a long time. This amped her up to get to the bridge even more to meet the captain of the ship.

Finally making it to the bridge, she felt a surge of emotions flood from her like a shaken liter of Pepsi. There, standing in the doorway of the bulkhead door was none other than her boyfriend, Wade 'Parzival' Watts.

* * *

Parzival crossed his arms while giving Art3mis the coolest smirk he could muster. ' _Am I being too nerdy? Am I trying too hard? I think my shoulders are too stiff. Relax man, relax.'_ He thought to himself, mentally berating himself for again, trying so hard to make himself seem cool to his girlfriend. She had told him on numerous occasions that she could tell when he tried too hard, but he couldn't help but feel like he was the luckiest guy in the world. Not because he owned the majority of GSS shares, but because through it all somehow this one of a kind girl saw something in his nerdy self.

She smiled back at him, and ran to embrace him.

This wasn't the first time they've hugged in virtual cyberspace. He knew that physically hugging was light years ahead of the simulation. He even knew that what he felt was nanomachines inside his suit condensing and heating to conjure a replica of what he _should_ feel. But that did not take away from the fact that it felt freakin' good. The Smellotron even released a brief whiff of a soft vanilla cinnamon scent. The one she had configured her avatar to have.

"Sam." He breathed.

"Wade" She replied back, as breathless as he did. It had been weeks since they had hung out virtually, months since they had been in the same physical space.

"You made it! I'm so happy to see you're here. Happier than Cameron's dad in his Ferrari." Parzival referenced, giving her a shining look.

Art3mis gave him a dumbfounded expression. Before bursting into laughter. "Ferris Bueller? Really? You going to throw a Bueller reference at me when we're surrounded and about to die?" She teased, eyebrow raised. He shrugged.

"Can't help it. You bring that out in me."

"Is that Art3mis? **The** Art3mis who on February 13th, two hours before midnight launched a love themed assault on the Sixer convoy 166 in Sector 8?" Tanks said while manning the captain's console. "The same Art3mis who defeated an IOI carrier single handedly after boarding it through a blindspot on a subsection life support module?" He didn't turn his head to look at them, staying focused on the battle ahead.

"Uhh… yes?" She said in an awkward tone. Parzival gave her a reassuring smile.

"He's mostly harmless, a bit of a talker but this is Tanks, preferably called Matt. Saved my life." He welcomed her onto the bridge, her face lighting with wonder and awe at the set up Tanks had on his ship. A face he had not too long ago.

"How did you get here?" Parzival found himself asking, then head gesturing to the crater on the bow of the ship. "That yours?"

"No. Two players rescued me after Sh-... uh, Daisho pushed to get to you. That's what Shoto is calling himself now by the way. We all tried to get to the planet with you." Parzival recoiled a tiny bit at that news. He smiled and nodded after a moment, appreciating the name that was a celebration of the two swords they had named themselves after.

"Well, we're still making progress there. Matt is pushing through with this remarkable destroyer." Art3mis observed the bridge, obviously impressed.

Parzival had spent time scanning the ship, trying to discern the stats of the Destroyer to identify how it was performing so well. From what he could figure, he knew that Tanks was using an integrated Oasis HUD that was developed for Real Time Strategy gamers called: "Command Vision." Within it, players were able to view a fixed amount of distance around them in a three-dimensional map. It allowed them to view the environment in a way other players could not. Though quality of picture is scaled down to preserve the processing power of most Oasis rigs, Tanks was able to essentially see the whole ship in any angle he desired with zoom provided his line of sight was not obstructed and he wasn't inside the walls or objects. Parzival noted through his observations and guessing that Lelm, Prat, and Matt were probably the only human players in his crew. The rest of the ship's crew were all NPC's under his command.

He was literally micromanaging _every_ NPC on the ship to mount a coordinated defense on the ship. He created choke points that funneled all breached entry points to highly defensible positions. He had engineers sneak through ventilation shafts to continue maintenance on auto-defense turrets on the outer hull to alleviate pressure from his crew. He manipulated operational subsystems like a fire suppression system to hinder the progress of some zombies. All the while maneuvering and still utilizing the main functions of the ship through an ever increasing zombie horde.

He identified the Destroyer as a tier 4 Igneus Leviathan. Not one of the best Destroyer models out there, but it was seen often in important battles within Oasis history because of it's decent firepower to cost ratio. Tanks had obviously reskinned and modified it to look like a WWII Naval ship.

Despite the standard stats of the ship, it was Tanks' skill that allowed them to get about 2 OSD from the planet. The spawning mechanisms of the zombie ships had ramped up so much that about a dozen new ships generated _every_ second with the intent to demolish their vessel.

Looking outside the viewport, Parzival felt his stomach turn at the encroaching horde. Thousands of grotesque conjurations wailed and wildly moved amongst each other in attempts to get to their ship. It was like a locust swarm of ghouls squished so much that they may as well have been one entity. They fired and swung madly trying to run through themselves to get to the ship because it was so dense despite the fact they were in the vastness of space.

The Destroyer had taken a considerable amount of abuse, but still held up thanks to the combined efforts of the crew onboard. Parzival had taken to manning a turret console before Art3mis had showed up. He ushered her towards them. There was a small ring of arcade cabinets that had a joystick and a few buttons. The turrets were normally programmed to automatically fire on the closest target indiscriminately, only exchanging targets when the ship was dead or if another ship came closer. There were many problems with this algorithm, so Parzival figured that with Art3mis and him mounting the eight machines they could focus fire the most threatening targets.

"How far?" Parzival asked as he and Art3mis sat down and began using the console. There was a small screen above their head that showed the location of the turret the cabinet was connected to. Each of the eight consoles was hooked up to three turrets, which meant there were twenty four point defense guns on the hull.

"1.5 OSD, nearly there!" Tanks screamed over the NPC crew barking status reports. "Also, Parzival is it true that during the hunt for the Crystal key you-"

"Not now Matt." He interrupted. Art3mis gave him a confused look asking for context but he just smiled at her. They continued operating the consoles, quickly dispersing the most threatening ships. The ship was efficiently programmed, the turrets continued their protocols immediately after they were unmanned allowing a near instantaneous defense among all 24 turrets.

After a brief moment where they began taking control of the situation, Parzival spotted something bad.

"Massive bogie on South-west negative Z!" He cried, using space slang to relay enemy position in 3D to Tanks. Tanks flicked a finger and twisted his hand probably using the CV to view what Parzival had pinged.

Parzival saw through the mass of flesh and bone a gargantuan ship pushing everything around it aside. Despite the way Tanks had piloted and the speed they were going, it gained distance on them. When it broke through the surface of the tailing zombies, Parzival gasped at the size of it. It was structured like a centipede, with an enlarged human head as large as the ship itself. It growled, eerily unhinging its jaw while teeth the size of personal carriers glistened with drool. It slithered towards the ship, gaining and gaining despite the vertical turns and dives that Tanks tried.

The rear underside of the Destroyer was only defensible with auto turrets. For this carrier sized beast to even be deterred, it would require a full force attack from the large cannons mounted on the front of the ship. Unfortunately Tanks could not rotate or maneuver the ship in a way to get the giant ship within the arc of the turrets without jeopardizing the ship. The moment he pivoted the ship to get an angle on the ship, he would lose the maximum speed he had generated which would allow them to catch up even faster. He couldn't risk it, and Parzival couldn't blame him.

"P&P!" Parzival yelled to Art3mis, who nodded after a brief second. It was slang for 'Poke and Prod' a common term used in games where you had to identify a weakness on an unknown enemy. Together they fired at every visible part in the Centi-beast. Eyes, nose, mandibles, down the throat, between the slits where body connected to body, joints, but nothing worked. Either the creature had no weak points, or the strength of the turrets wasn't enough to break through armor.

"Shit, can't find one!" Parzival said, looking over at Art3mis. He was shocked at what he saw. Her eyebrows were furrowed, eyes darting back and forth between 3 screens, and avatar huffing as she struggled to keep pace. But that wasn't what shocked him. It was that she had an ear to ear grin on her face. She let out a soft squeal when a ship destroyed a turret, and she scattered the screen to continue firing. There was no doubt about it this time. She _was_ enjoying herself. Even with all this pressure and doom hanging over their heads, she was having fun. ' _What the f-_ ' Parzival thought but was cut off when a huge collision threw everyone out of their seats and onto the ceiling. The impact was so damaging the lights even flickered and power was momentarily lost.

"Gravity M-banks failing. Zero-G environment initiated." The ships comm said as soon as the power stabilized. Parzival and the rest of the crew in the cabin were all sprawled on the ceiling dumbfounded for a second. ' _What happened?'_ Parzival thought looking around to get a sense of his bearings.

"Back to your stations! I want assessment, now!" Tanks yelled, pushing with his feet off the ceiling back towards the captain's console.

"Sir, something just hit the port side, we've lost our main thruster and decks 13-20." An NPC reported when it got back to the status computer.

Parzival looked over at the point-defense turret map next to the arcade cabinet banks. 75% of the point defense turrets on the back of the destroyer were gone. The Destroyer dramatically slowed.

"Oh shit." He whispered.

"That thing got us." Art3mis said, rubbing her head.

"Engine capacity is zero. We're dead in the water. GO! NOW!" Tanks yelled. Parzival and Art3mis glanced at the proximity display and saw the horde of enemy pings enclosing on the ship rapidly. Luckily the ship was drifting, the momentum still carrying the ship forward, but without the thruster in the back they had literally seconds before they were swarmed.

Without a second thought, Parzival opened up his menu and grabbed a personal carrier just as Tanks did.

"Sam!" Parzival stretched out a hand to her and she grabbed it. Quick slotting a rocket launcher he aimed it at the front of the bridge right at where the protective glass kept the cabin pressurized. Then he pulled the trigger.

Outside, the brown planet was gigantic, they couldn't be more than 1.5 OSD away. It covered nearly all they could see through the front. The details of the planet came into view. Giant sandy peach storms rolled over the planet, along with dense cloud formations of varying brown shades.

In the corner of his vision, he saw the space station spinning gently. It was difficult to see, nearly jet black. But it was donut shaped, with many armed extensions for docking bays and lights that spotlighted the structure off in the distance. It was _huge_ , about as large as top clan space bases that normally house hundreds of capital sized ships. For a brief moment, Parzival wondered what was the purpose of that space station, before the rocket he fired at the front exploded and destroyed the barrier.

"Hold on!" He yelled to Art3mis, squeezing her hand tight as the Oasis emulated a depressurizing cabin and sucked everyone out into digital space. Within an instant his health points began taking massive bleeding damage that began to multiply exponentially, and he was enveloped with a cold sensation while he and Art3mis spun wildly through space. The rig did it's best to keep up with the wild movements of him spinning about like a doll through a tornado.

Fortunately Parzival had already queued up the AP-782 personal vessel and it built around Art3mis and himself within seconds. It was a small ship that was spacious for one human avatar, a single seat with a circular structure built around it. It looked like a horizontal water drop painted white and red, equipped with no weapon armaments. As soon as it constructed, Art3mis had leaped at the pilot seat after she untangled herself from Parzival and they shot forward. She pushed the ship to its max speed within seconds, rerouting all power to shields and engines.

Looking behind through the rearview camera display, Parzival watched as the Destroyer was ripped to shreds. The centipede behemoth devoured the rest of the ship, along with a mass of thousands of other nightmares that covered it like a fresh coat of horror paint.

Ships began spawning next to their ship. Art3mis tried to roll and dive the ship out of the way of their attacks but she was unfamiliar with the ship and couldn't compensate for the mid-attack spawn animations they executed.

The personal carrier was meant to carry you through the Oasis through safe zones, and was not outfitted for combat. Because of that, after three hits the shield strength was already at low capacity. Smoke began filling the cabin, the smell of electric exhaust came out of the Smellotron which choked Parzival. He hadn't smelled that one in a long time and though it was awful, but was comforted by the fact that the Smellotron never did anything that was enough to be traumatizing.

"Hitting atmo' soon! We can make it!" Art3mis said, wincing as a fire under the controls leaked out onto her foot. Parzival shook his head as he cast a gentle water spell which doused the flame. Hull integrity was already near operational failure.

"We won't make it Sam." Parzival doubtfully said. She turned to look at him, glaring. He shook his head, trying to think of something else.

"Yes, we will." She grunted before diverting the power from life systems to the engines, giving them extra speed. Parzival was pushed back into the seat, Art3mis was sitting on his lap. One of her hands on the stick while the other was on the dashboard to utilize the two mini-thrusters sported on either side of the main one.

Glancing to the corner of the glass shield, a tiny number indicated the distance to the planet's atmosphere.

0.5 OSD.

Parzival blinked, unbelieving. ' _Wait, are we actually going to do this!?_ ' He thought, surprised. Art3mis demonstrated an outstanding pilot proficiency. She was able to compensate the ship after a brief moment of flying it, adjusting her skill comfortably. While she as no racing ace, this was similar to combat since she emphasized slipping out of attacks after recognizing patterns. Because of the similarity she was able to edge towards the planet while bobbing and weaving around their attacks like a boxer in their prime against drunks.

"Need heal." She ordered, and he brought his attention to his health, which began taking oxygen deprivation damage. Opening his inventory, he began using health potions on both of them to offset the health they were losing. Then he took out a few oxygen masks equipped with tanks from his inventory and strapped them to himself and her.

Art3mis' motions were slowing, she was dodging less. Taking a look at their vicinity map, most of the ships had fallen behind, losing out to the speed of their vessel. Additionally, the ships spawning rate had slowed eventually to null. Parzival grinned ear to ear as he watched the last of the ships drop away from pursuit. Their barely holding ship somehow broke through the throng of enemies.

"You did it!" He yelled, shaking her shoulders. She didn't respond, but there was a smirk on her face as she continued to speed towards the planet. They were nearly there, Art3mis priming to break through the atmosphere.

Parzival opened up his communication window to announce to the other GSS staff and friends that he and Art3mis had made it when he heard Art3mis scream for a brief moment before blackness swallowed his vision.

"Wait what?" He asked into the void. His suit had picked up no feedback or sensations to emulate. He smelled nothing and felt nothing. His HUD had become completely black, his player information that was on the sides of his vision was not there. No HP, Mana, level, quickslot bar, quickskills, nothing.

Then with a gut sinking blindness, was the words he had not seen in years.

GAME OVER

* * *

Nolan Sorrento relished in the freedom as the handcuffs came off his wrists. The officers who flanked him on either side watched with bored expressions as another officer pocketed the cuffs in a pocket on their belt and nodded to him.

He rubbed the skin on his wrists gingerly, walking up to the inmate possessions window. The clerk behind there passed him a large ziploc bag from what he was wearing at the time of his arrest.

He slipped on his watch, made with a stylized platinum with Star Trek themes on it. He smiled as fastened he the buckle into the holes, memories of his fondness for the series coming back to him. He thought about how interesting it was that most people forgot how geeky he was because of his ruthlessness within IOI. He loved geek culture, but he knew what it could do. He hated what it could do. Loathed it. He stretched his arms as he was escorted out of the federal prison. After they had passed the second to last checkpoint, they slipped on a bullet proof vest on him and several officers flanked him in a tight circle.

They opened the last door to the outside and Nolan was greeted with an onslaught of camera flashes and outcries of protestors. The officers in front of him, who were clad in riot gear, slapped their right arms and what looked initially like a simple protector expanded out into a shield. They raised it as balls of mud and bottles full of sewage flew with the intention of hitting Nolan. The group moved forward as other officers had formed a barricade near the gate held protestors and press back.

A limo sat covered in fecal matter in the middle of the road. Officers pushed protestors who were too overtly aggressive or violent onto the ground before arresting them, and the press took pictures and video immediately.

' _Small showing,_ ' Nolan thought humorously as he was ushered toward the limo. He was surprised when he finally took a seat inside the stretch, the only thing that had landed on him was some rotten mix of bananas and potatoes. He reached over to the tissue box and wiped off the remnants from his neck and shoulder.

Sitting across from him, was a young indian woman who could not wear a more distasteful expression even if she had tried. Her legs were crossed and she glared at him, huffing and rolling her eyes. She was beautiful, hair tucked in a bun, bright red glasses offsetting her brown skin and eyes.

"What an absolute shit show." She said, looking outside. She turned to look over at Nolan. "You better be worth this." He gave her a sharp look, one that he had worked on for a long time. He saw a few pores on her arms harden, but she gave no visible display of effect.

' _She's good._ ' He thought. "I didn't get to my position for being not worth it." He emphasized the last part, mocking her.

"If you were, I wouldn't be here picking up after you." She quickly fired back, taking out a wine bottle from a mini-fridge as the vehicle finally burst through the crowd and made its way to a car wash. She filled one of the glasses that was sticking out of some slots built into the side of the passenger cabin.

"Why are you here, picking me up? You're definitely not an intern." Nolan asked, leaning over to grab a glass himself. He opened the mini-fridge and saw that she had the only alcoholic bottle left. He leaned the glass towards her, since she still had it next to her. She eyed his glass with a blank expression, and then looked up to meet his gaze. She reached over to the bottle, without breaking eye contact, and flicked the bottle so it landed on the floor, spilling its contents.

Nolan hissed at the $300 wine draining itself on the ground of the limo. She continued on, without missing a beat, ignoring his clenched glare.

"IOI has issued me the task of vetting your ability to continue working with IOI. Especially since there is no purpose for Oology anymore."

"Great." He said. "I'll save them the money. I'm good to work. My work history speaks for itself. You think a year is enough to deteriorate my skill repertoire?"

He reached over to the mini-fridge, getting some chilled blueberry soda and indulged himself.

"We'll be running some standard efficiency tests back at IOI regardless of what you say. I'll be personally seeing that." She said, flicking her wrist and a small hologram shot out from the tiny band that was around it. "Schedule update." She said, and it hummed before showing her next appointment.

"You are on time." It said.

"What happened with the Oasis?" Nolan found himself asking. Unfortunately, while he was in Federal Prison, the guards had made a very strict policy on technology deprivation for him. The only source of entertainment he had was an old FM news radio and books for the last year. He felt isolated.

She looked at him with an arched eyebrow, a hint of a mischievous smirk on her lips.

"They said you were fond of the Oasis. I guess that's true." He kept his gaze on her, unrelenting, waiting for an update. He could feel her get uncomfortable, she scratched her neck and moved her head back and forth trying to play it off nonchalantly. He kept staring at her, waiting for her to answer.

After a moment, she did.

"Parzival is of course now the majority shareholder of GSS, and has been appointed CEO as per Ogden Morrow's support. Not much has changed. He's holding some sort of new event today."

"Event?" Nolan asked quickly. She answered with a disinterested tone, as if there was nothing special about it.

"Yeah, made a new sector. Creepy thing, lots of monster-like ships ripping apart people just trying to get there. He participated in the battle himself, as if he was just another player. Interesting choice since one of our GSS moles said something's not right in their development office. Hush hush before they could get the scoop."

Nolan perked at that. There was a lot of interesting tidbits of information she had just revealed. Halliday in the forty years the Oasis had been around, had _never_ expanded beyond the 3x3 configuration. Parzival, a man who loved Halliday, and devoted his entire life to studying and honoring the creator suddenly expanded the Oasis? Not only that, he participated in his own event? There was a reason why developers never played _along_ with the players.

' _No… something is definitely not right.'_ Nolan thought. He kept thinking about it while they cleaned the car, and drove to one of IOI's training facilities.

"Who are you?" He found himself asking. A sudden call notification lit up on her wristband, and her face flushed beet red despite the dark complexion. She clicked it away, regaining her composure.

"You had a sister right?" She asked, again in a condescending tone, as if he was expected to answer her. He gritted his teeth, face hardening. He didn't respond, instead attempting to calm the boiling fury that surfaced because of the repressed memories screaming to make itself known.

"Who. Are. You." He said again, deliberately.

"Most people at IOI don't really care about your history. But I've got the logs of when you were at Gygax searching for the Copper Key. A conversation with two Gunters. Paid a pretty penny from an archivist at GSS to get it too." He froze at this mention.

A long time ago, before he had even worked at IOI, he too was hunting for Halliday's egg by himself. He was on a ship with two Gunters, and had a very passionate conversation with his real intentions. It was a fluke, a mistake of a moment. But at that point in time, he had felt compelled to tell someone of his plans, and who better than two random strangers? He never imagined that what he said that day would come back to haunt him. Then, something occurred to him.

"You don't work for IOI do you?" Nolan asked. Realization dawning upon him.

She looked at him with a blank expression, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean? Of course I-"

"Cut the bullshit. From a business perspective, there are not enough positive benefits to justify rehiring me. Especially for PR. So I'll ask one last time, before I physically extract it from you. Who. The fuck. Are. You?" He continued glaring at her as intensely as he could, gently balling his hands into fists at his sides as he did so.

The vehicle immediately stopped, and the window that separated the driver from passengers opened up and an older looking Caucasian man in his fifties stuck a pistol out at Nolan. Nolan flinched, eliciting a giggle from the woman.

"It's okay Shepard. We're just talking." She said, calmly, a smile spreading across her face.

"My name is Emelia Magellan, and I've got a bit of a business proposition for you." She patted Shepard's bulky arm, opting the man to reluctantly withdraw and continue driving. He left the window open however, eyeing Nolan through the rearview mirror. She leaned forward, resting elbows on her knees and intertwined her hands.

"How would you like to have another chance at destroying the Oasis?" Nolan froze, feeling his anger and anxiety evaporating. ' _What did she just say? Does she really have a log of me talking to those two idiots?_ '

"My brother would like to recruit you." She finished her glass of wine, somehow still holding the glass steady despite the many cracks and potholes they ran over in the limo.

"To destroy the Oasis?" Nolan asked, eagerly. They had his attention now.

"No. But he's willing to give you the chance." She replied, and from an unnoticed purse that was on the floor next to her she pulled a sleek glass folder out. She tossed it over to him, and he caught it sloppily in his lap. He opened the folder, and the screen turned on showing someone he hated. Someone he abhored. Someone he wanted to bury.

There, with multiple tabs and documentations was Wade Watts. Along with it, was dozens of documents and videos of GSS, from classified corporate dealings, blueprints of the HQ, and the source code for sensitive systems like their security system, and human resources manager.

"Are you for real?" He asked her, skeptical.

"Real as Rye. I pinky promise." She replied.

Nolan looked back down at the file, grinning. He felt, for the first time in a long time. Happy. Even excited.

"When do I start?" He asked her, fingers nearly shaking from excitement.

"Now." She replied.

* * *

There you have it, the end of chapter 4! What will happen now!? Who knows! I'll be working on the next chapter of my other story "We Rise" with the Division, and then I might write something different freshen my mind. Thanks for your support! Please leave a review to let me know how you feel or what you think! I'd love to know regardless of intent!

~ Trayscent


End file.
